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Our Wisconsin 

A School History of the 
Badger State 



By 
E: G. DOUDNA 



>< ^^^ 



Superintendent of Schools 

Wisconsin Rapids^ Wis. 



Revised Edition 



EAU CLAIRE BOOK & STATIONERY CO. 
EAU CLAIRE, WIS. 






COPYRIGHTED 1920, 1922 

by 

EAU CLAIRE BOOK & STATIONERY CO. 



9t TmnafiBT 

MA, 18 iyi. 



PRINTED AND BOUND BY 

BEOROE BANTA PUBLISHING CO. 

MANUFACTURING PUBLIBHERB 

IIKENA8HA, WISC0T4SIN 



PREFACE 

This little book has been prepared to meet the needs of 

schoois for a short history of Wisconsin. It aims to tell 
the story of the state in its salient features, and to bring 
out the striking episodes which have lent picturesqueness 
to the earlier periods of our history and significance to the 
later developments when the commonwealth was in the 
making. It is not intended that the chapters dealing with 
the later development of the state shall serve as more 
than an introduction to these topics, which have been so 
fully treated in the special histories that have been pub- 
lished. 

The teacher of Wisconsin history should have at hand 
for reference the latest edition of the Blue Book and one 
of the more complete histories such as Thwaites' ''Wis- 
consin," of the American Commonwealth series. The his- 
tory of the state should always be keot in strict subordina- 
tion to that of the United States, although we should not 
undervalue the trials and sacrifices made by th^ pioneers 
of the Badger Commonwealth. To understand and ap- 
preciate Avhat thes^ men aind women did for us is an im- 
portant step in the development in our young people of 
the ideals of citizenship that obtain in our Wisconsin. 

The basis of this book is "The Leading Events of 
Wisconsin History" written in 1898 by Henry E. Legler. 
The publications of the Wisconsin Historical Society and 
the many works of the late R. G. Thwaites have also been 
used constantly in verifying statements of fact. 

E. G. D. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. Wisconsin in 1634 7 

II. The Indians 13 

III. The Coming of the White Men 23 

IV. The S trange Adventure of Radisson . . 32 
V. Nicholas Perrot, Forest Ranger 36 

YJ- The Wan derings of the Black Gowns 40, 

VII. JoLiET AND Marquette 45^ 

VIII. La Salle and His Companions 53 

IX. La Salle and the Mississippi 58 

X. Famous: Visitors 63 

XL The War with the Fox Indians 68 

XII. Under the Flag of England 78 

XIII. Charles Langlade 84 

XIV. English Travelers in Wisconsin 89 

XV. Wisconsin in the Revolution 94 

XVI. The Northwest Territory 101 

XVII. Wisconsin in the War of 1812 106 

XVIII. Life in the Early Settlements Ill 

XIX. From Fur Trading to Lead Mining. ... 115 

XX. Red Bird and Black Hawk 122 

XXI. The Territory of Wisconsin 132 

XXII. The Thirteenth Star 140 

XXIII. From 1848 to 1860 145 

XXIV. In the Civil War 152 

XXV. The Melting Pot 161 

XXVI. Since the Civil War 168 

XXVII. In the World War 172 

XXVIII. Wisconsin in Industry 178 

XXIX. Wisconsin in Literature 186 

XXX. The Growth of the Public School. . . . 193 



Our Wisconsin 



CHAPTER I 

WISCONSIN IN 1634 

The story of Wisconsin begins with the visit of the 
young French explorer, Jean Nicolet, to Green Bay in 
1634. At this time there were but few white people in 
Xorth America, and most of them lived near the Atlantic 
coast or on the rivers which were easily navigable to the 
sea. The English had a few settlements in New England 
and Virginia; the Spanish in Florida and Mexico; the 
Dutch in New York ; and the French in Canada. These 
people all believed they were near India, a country of 
marvelous riches, and this belief led to the discovery and 
exploration of "Our Wisconsin." 

The history of the state is interesting and profitable. 
Its story is one of adventure and sacrifice. In the heart 
of the continent it was a prize to be fought for, and three 
flags have waved in succession over it. We shall en- 
deavor to follow the men and women who came here 
when wilderness was king and whose efforts laid the 
foundations of the Badger state. We shall go with them 
on their long and weary journeys down unexplored 
streams, across the tangled portage paths, and through 
the forests, and shall follow them as they gradually over- 
come the obstacles offered by the land and the Indian 
until a srreat state stands as a monument to their heroism. 



8 OUR WISCONSIN 

Location. The situation of Wisconsin at the head- 
waters of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers had 
much to do with its early discovery. The distances be- 
tween the rivers flowing into Lake Michigan and Lake 
Superior and those tributary to the INIississippi wxre so 
short that five or six portage paths had been made by the 
Lidians. At one point the distance from the Wisconsin 
River to the Fox is not much more than a mile. In times 
of high water these two rivers often overflow their banks 
and mingle their waters. A raindrop falling on this 
narrow divide might be carried down the Mississippi to 
the Gulf of Mexico; or perchance through the Great 
Lakes, over Niagara Falls, into the St. Lawrence and 
thence to the i\tlantic Ocean. 

Age. It is less than three hundred years since Xicolet 
came to Wisconsin, and these three centuries are the 
years with which recorded history deals. The geologist, 
who studies the rocks and reads in them the story of the 
ages, tells us that our state is about fifteen million years 
old. The northern portion is the older; it is perhaps the 
oldest portion of the world. Great granite mountains 
were pushed out of the sea. In the course of the ages 
they have been worn down to a plain. At some later 
time great sheets of ice or glaciers invaded all but one 
portion of the state, the western and southwestern. The 
part which escaped glaciation is known as the driftless 
area and includes about a dozen counties. 

The glacier left piles of stone and gravel along its 
southern and easterh borders, and huge depressions in 
the ground which filled with Avater and became lakes. 
These lakes are scattered all over the glaciated area of 



WISCONSLY IN 1634 9 

the state, but are most numerous in the northern part, 
near the source of the Wisconsin and along the St. Croix. 

Forests. The rich soil and the temperate climate pro- 
duced a heavy growth of trees throughout the state. 
Here and there the great forests were broken by prairie 
openings where now there are exceedingly rich farms. 
The northern part was most heavily timbered with pine, 
spruce, hemlock, birch, and cedar. In the southern part 
the oak was the principal tree. The elm and the maple 
were found in every part of the state. Berries of every 
description grew wild in the open spaces of the forest, 
and the Avild grape was abundant. 

It is estimated that one hundred billion feet of pine 
timber stood in the forests when the white men came. 
IMost of this is now gone, taken as toll by the forty years 
in which lumbering was the most important industry of 
the state. 

Soil. The soil of Wisconsin is very fertile, although 
even today less than three-quarters of the state's land 
area is in farms. The northern part of the state has both 
sand and clay soils. • In the south is a clay-loam area of 
lime stone rock. Between these two areas is one of 
lighter soil which' in the AVisconsin river valley is quite 
largely sand. It was a long time before the resources of 
the soil were recognized. The principal agricultural 
development began in the southern part of the state 
because its climate was warmer and its growing season 
longer; the hard wood forests were more easily cleared 
and the prairies were ready for the plow ; and the trans- 
portation of crops to market was less difificult. 

Minerals. Because \Msconsin was the oldest land 
area it was high and dry above the seas when the coal 




Paddy the Beaver 



WISCONSIN IN 1634 11 

deposits of the neighboring states were in the making. 
Therefore we find no coal deposits in this state. There 
were vast deposits of iron and copper in the north, while 
in the southwest there were large quantities of lead and 
zinc. The discovery of the lead regions had much to do 
w^ith the second period in the industrial development of 
the state. Fine granite and other building stones were 
found in many sections. The lime, stone found in most 
of the southern counties is of great importance now that 
cement has become so much used in all construction. 

Furs. Just as the call of Europe for precious stones 
had much to do with the discovery of America, so the 
demand for furs is responsible for the early exploration 
of Wisconsin. The fur trade was the state's first indus- 
try, and as we shall soon see, it determined the history of 
the state for two centuries. ''The hardy, adventurous, 
lawless, facinating fur-trade" was possible because in the 
northern regions of the Mississippi valley there were 
more fur-bearing animals than in any other part of the 
world. The numerous rivers of this section, and their 
connection with the French settlements on the St.. 
Lawrence contributed greatly to the development of this 
section of North America. 

The most important of the fur-bearing animals was 
the beaver, and the" beaver abounded here. The marten, 
the otter, the muskrat, and the black bear were also highly 
valued for their pelts. Other animals such as the fox, the 
lynx, and the wolf had a lesser value. The beaver, how- 
ever, was the most sought for and the most highly 
prized. 

Besides the fur-bearing animals many others lived in 
the woods and caves. Elk, deer, ducks, geese, grouse, 



12 OUR WISCONSIN 

and other game abounded and made it easy for the Indian 
and explorer to procure animal food in the spring, sum- 
mer and fall. 

The trees were full of song birds, and the owl and 
hawk Avere common. Of course the woods had plenty of 
dangers from reptiles and wild animals. The rattle snake 
was all too common and constituted a real menace. On 
the prairies of the south great herds of buffalo occasion- 
ally crossed the Mississippi and lived here. The rivers 
abounded in fish, trout being plentiful in the clear, cold 
spring water of the smaller streams. 

Through the forests the red man was free to wander, 
but save for a few Indian villages all was one vast wilder- 
ness. The great natural resources of the state were 
untouched by the savages, and it was two centuries after 
the discovery of the state before its material and social 
development began. But after all a state is made by its 
men and women, and it is the story of these men and 
women who made Wisconsin that we wish to tell. The 
rest is the back ground for their history. 

QUESTIONS 

1. Locate the St. Croix, Chippewa, Black, Wisconsin, Rock, and 

Fox rivers. Indicate portages between the Great Lakes 
and the Mississippi. 

2. What is the present area of Wisconsin? 

3. What effect did Wisconsin's location have upon its early 

history? 

4. Why did the southern and eastern parts of the state come to 

be settled before the north and the west? 

5. Why has Wisconsin no coal beds? 

6. Make a report upon the natural history of the beaver. 

7. Describe the "driftless area" of the state. 

8. Locate on the map all of the places named. Always do this 

when reading history. Fix all facts in time and place. 



CHAPTER II 



THE INDIANS 



Tribes. During the period in which Wisconsin was 
being explored there were probably ten thousand Indians 
living within the present boundaries of the state. These 
Indians belonged to several tribes and families. We 
usually classify a people on the basis of the language 
spoken. Those who speak English, German, or Dutch are 
called Germanic ; those speaking Norwegian, Swedish, or 
Danish are Scandinavians ; and the French, Spanish, and 
Italian are Latins. Indian families are classified on the 
same principle as Algonkins, Iroquois, and Dakotas. The 
Dakota family Hved chiefly to the west of the Mississippi 
and the others to the east. 

The Winnebagoes. The Winnebagoes, a branch of the 
Dakotas, lived at the head of Green Bay and in the valleys 
of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. They were called by 
the other Indians The Men of the Sea, as it was believed 
they had come from near the ocean. Their early home 
had been beyond the Mississippi, and this river was 
probably thought to be near the sea. They were a savage 
looking people, with high cheek bones, flat noses, and eyes 
set far apart. In many respects they were wild and cruel 
like their cousins, the Sioux. It is now quite generally 
believed that the Winnebagoes built the strange earth 
works found in Wisconsin so long attributed to the 
mound-builders. When Nicolet came to the state they 



14 OUR WISCONSIN 

were warlike and possessed great physical strength, but 
those of their descendants now living are described as 
being "the poorest, meanest, and most ill-visaged of Wis- 
consin Indians." 

In the northern part of Wisconsin and in upper Michi- 
gan and Canada were found the Hurons, an Iroquois tribe 
driven thither by the stronger Indian nations of the East. 
Here and there were other tribes, the Kickapoos; Mascou- 
tins, Illinois, Miami, and Ottawas being the principal ones. 
They influenced the history of the state but little. 

Location of Tribes. The Algonkins, the most numer- 
ous Indian family in Wisconsin, were also the most intel- 
ligent. To this family have belonged many of the cele- 
brated Indians of history; King Philip, Powhattan, 
Tammany, Pontiac, Tecumseh, and Black Hawk. The 
Ojibways, now called the Chippewas, were the least 
savage of this family. They lived along the shores of 
Lake Superior and as far south as the Black River. In the 
northeast lived the quiet and gentle Menomonies, known 
as Wild Rice Eaters. They were a fine looking people of 
comparatively light complexion who were not particularly 
warlike in disposition'. From Green Bay southward along 
the shore of Lake Michigan lived the Pottawattomies, the 
most restless of the Algonkin tribes. Much of the 
material in Longfellow's Hiawatha comes from their 
traditions, although the background of the poem is the 
land of the Chippewas on Lake Superior. The Sacs, 
sometimes known as the Sauks, and the Foxes, often 
known as the Outagamies, were other important tribes, 
and the only ones to become unfriendly to the French. 
The Foxes eventually brought on an Indian war which all 
but exterminated them, and which greatly weakened the 
hold of the French on the West. 




^•-%- 



s^>x 



A Wisconsin Indian 



16 OUR WISCONSIN 

Although the Indians shifted about somewhat as the 
seasons changed to seek game or to find fields best fitted 
for growing corn, they could not be called a nomadic 
people. In places where water and fish were easily pro- 
cured and where grain and potatoes were easily grown 
they pitched their wigwams and built their villages. In 
proportion to population, then and now, these villages had 
as many people as the cities and villages of today. The 
love of their home-land was deep and strong, and when 
driven from it they sought again and again to return. It 
was unusual for a family of Indians to live alone in the 
forest. 

The Indian Home. The Indian house was frequently 
a hut or tent which could be moved easily. It was made 
of slender poles tied together at the top and covered with 
animal skins, mats made of rushes, or sheets made of birch 
bark. It was usually called a wigwam but often was 
known as a tepee or lodge. The Hurons built their cabins 
entirely of bark, and long and high. Around their villages 
they built a double row of paHsades, thus making a 
fortress. Sometimes cabins large enough to hold several 
families were built. These were sometimes a hundred feet 
long, twenty-five feet wide and twenty feet high. The 
Sioux built a cone shaped wigwam and the Chippewas a 
house shaped like half a baseball. Most of the houses 
were very insanitary. This condition led to many dis- 
eases, especially lung troubles and rheumatism. Contrary 
to the general impression the Indian was not unusually 
healthy. Epidemics of small-pox and other diseases often 
swept away half the population of a village. Before mid- 
dle age, both men and Avomen usually looked old and hag- 
gard. The home life reflected the dirty, improvident 
habits of the red man. 



THE INDIANS 17 

Clans. The Indians were divided into clans, each hav- 
ing its clan-sign or totem which represented some beast, 
bird, or reptile. The clansmen were supposed to be rela- 
tives, although often not a single drop of blood was com- 
mon to all of them. Marrying within a clan was forbid- 
den ; a member of the Wolf clan, for instance, might 
marry into the Bear clan but not into the Wolf clan even 
though no blood relationship existed between the mem- 
bers. Away from home the Indian always found a wel- 
come among the members of his clan. To identify him- 
self, he often had his totem tatooed upon his body. 

The Indian's Squaw and Her Home Life. It was not 
uncommon for an Indian to have several w^ves. He was 
apt to tyranize over his squaw, or squaws, but usually he 
was a jolly, easy-going, shiftless fellow. He smoked 
tobacco in curiously carved pipes made from the red pipe- 
stone of Alinnesota. Most of his food was obtained by 
hunting and fishing. When the Indians raised corn, 
beans, melons, pumpkins and sunflowers, the ground was 
prepared by the women who also planted and cultivated 
the crops. They made maple sugar and frequently dried 
the grapes and berries that grew in profusion everywhere. 
The Menomonies made use of the wild rice which grew in 
their section of the state. In general it may be said that 
the home life of the Indian was the least admirable part of 
his scheme of living. 

The Indian made fire in two ways. Sometimes two 
flint-like stones were struck together and the sparks which 
resulted caught on dry, rotten wood called "punk." If 
flints were not available they rubbed two pieces of dry 
cedar together with great rapidity until the friction pro- 
duced sparks which set fire to the "punk." Some tribes 



18 VVR WISCONSIN 

made beautiful cooking utensils but this was an unusual 
practice. Dishes were made of shells, bark or rude pot- 
tery. These could not be placed on a fire, therefore a 
primitive fireless cooker was devised ; that is, stones were 
heated and then put into dishes which were partly filled 
Avith water. In this way the water was made to boil and 
the meal was cooked. There were also rude devices for 
pounding* corn into coarse meal. These the women 
operated. 

Clothing. The clothing of the Indian was made prin- 
cipally of deer-skin. Needles of stone or bone were used 
to sew the skins together. Their garments were often 
handsomely embroidered, particularly the leggings and 
moccasins. Buffalo robes were common, and among some 
tribes the long wool of the bufifalo was spun into yarn and 
woven into cloth. Some of the Indians wore very ela- 
borate head-dresses of eagle feathers, each feather repre- 
senting an enemy slain by the brave. They painted their 
faces and sometimes decorated their bodies with gaudy 
red and green colors. If other colors were scarce, char- 
coal was used. Men usually wore their hair short, al- 
though one long lock, the scalp lock, was left on the top 
of the head. 

Government. There were no fixed forms of govern- 
ment. There were chiefs, but they were simply men who 
through personal influence were made leaders and ad- 
visers. They possessed no power to compel obedience. 
If a chief had much natural ability, he had a strong fol- 
lowing and almost as much power as a king ; but without 
ability, hereditary power gave him little control. In order 
to arouse enthusiasm for wars and for hunting it was 
frequently necessary for the chief to hold noisy feasts and 
dances. The Indian liked to debate, and he held councils 



THE IXDIANS 19 

at which every man who had taken an enemy's scalp was 
permitted to be heard. Most of the talking was done by 
these privileged men. Age was respected, and an old man 
was listened to with consideration. This was a primitive 
kind of democracy although not very efficient. Fear of 
common enemies and of famine kept the Indian from 
anarchy. 

Indian War Tools. The principal instruments of war 
were the bow and arrow. A typical bow was about three 
feet long and made of the toughest and most elastic wood 
to be found. The bow string was made of sinew twisted 
and braided until it was very strong. The arrow was 
made of hard wood or cane, had a point of stone and was 
tipped with feathers. Often the point was poisoned. The 
tomahawk was quite generally used, and in time it came 
to be considered a symbol of war. War-clubs, knives, 
spears, lances and shields were commonly used imple- 
ments. 

Warfare was common, usually for defense or for 
revenge ; but military campaigns as we know them were 
unknown. Raids, ambuscades, and surprise attacks were 
the favorite forms of strategy. Prisoners were treated 
without mercy and cruelly tortured, although sometimes 
an Indian would rescue a captive and adopt him into the 
tribe to take the place of a member killed in battle. 
Scalping was a common practice, and the scalps were 
treasured and worn upon state occasions. 

When a war chief was preparing an attack, he usually 
held a feast of several days' duration. Its purpose was to 
arouse the enthusiasm of his followers and make them 
anxious for war. On the return from a successful raid 
another feast was held, accompanied by the war dance and 



20 OUR WISCONSIN 

Other ceremonies of celebration and thanksgiving. The 
Indian on such occasions was very particular to observe 
the correct forms and to preserve the dignity of the tribe. 
The calumet, or peace-pipe, was smoked with elaborate 
ceremony. Welcome visitors received the pipe, and those 
whom the tribe particularly desired to honor were ac- 
corded a special program of speech-making, singing and 
dancing when the pipe was presented. 

The religion of the red man was like the rest of his 
ideas, primitive. He believed in good and bad spirits called 
manitous. Until after the coming of the white man, very 
few Indians believed in a "great spirit." However, they 
believed that the soul existed after the body was dead, and 
that it had wants like those the Indian had on earth. All 
sorts of offerings were made at the burial, and these were 
placed in the grave with the departed. 

Manner of Living. After the coming of the white man 
the Indian quickly changed his manner of living. He 
adopted fire-arms and "fire-water." He gave up his own 
methods of making a living and began hunting furs to sell 
to the fur-trader. He came to be dependent upon the 
trader and lost some of his original independence. At the 
best, his social development was not high, and it seemed 
to be easier for him to adopt the white man's vices than 
his virtues. The two centuries of struggle for possession 
of the continent ended with the Indian's living on reserva- 
tions provided by the government and dependent upon the 
bounty of Congress, or more rarely, living the life of 
civilization among his conquerers. 

Indian Mounds. It would not do to close this chapter 
without reference to the numerous mounds to be found in 
Wisconsin. For many years it was supposed that they 



THE INDIANS 21 

were built by a race that inhabited this country before the 
Indian came, but evidence seems to prove that they were 
built by the Indians. These mounds were usually found 
on the banks of streams and lakes or on high elevations 
near them. Once they must have been very numerous as 
more than two thousand have been counted in a single 
county. Many were built to resemble such animals as the 
lizzard, the turtle, the buffalo, or the squirrel. These are 
known' as ejfigy mounds. Some of them are at least a 
thousand years old ; others were built probably after the 
coming of the white man. They seem to have been built 
to commemorate the burial places of important men, to 
designate the clan to which the Indian group belonged, or 
perhaps as fortifications. It is a curious fact that many of 
the important cities of the state are located where the 
presence of numerous mounds shows Indian villages once 
to have been located. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

In the school library you may find Fredrick Starr's American 
Indians. If you are interested in Indians, read this book. 
Hiawatha, The Last of the Mohicans, and Ramona may also be 
read with profit. A number of other interesting books on 
Indian life may be found on the Wisconsin township library list. 

1. Find on the map of Wisconsin as many Indian names as 

you can. 

2. How many Indian reservations are there in the state? Lo- 

cate them. 

3. Compare Indian warfare with that of the Great War. 

4. The Indian is brown; why is he called red? 

5. What vegetables in common use were first obtained from the 

Indians? 



22. OUR WISCONSIN 

6. How did the name Indian originate? 

7. Some topics for additional study: Personal appearance of 

the Indian; Indian children; Indian farming; Wampum; 
Indian myths. 

8. Are there any Indians in your vicinity? If there are, report 

on them to your teacher. 

9. Are there any mounds near where you live? If there are, 

describe them. 



CHAPTER III 



THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN 

Discovery and Exploration. It was a hundred and 
forty years after the discovery of America before a white 
man set foot upon Wisconsin soil. Through the forests 
roamed the Indians unvexed by the knowledge that some 
day a great state, governed by a race of men of whom 
they had never heard, v/ould take the place of their hunt- 
ing grounds. Suddenly out of the East a Frenchman, 
Jean Nicolet, skirted the coast of Green Bay, made a 
spectacular entrance into their villages, explored the? 
Fox River, and returned to the mysterious country 
whence he came. For twenty years more the Indian held 
undisputed possession with no white men coming to 
molest him. Then began the long procession of ex- 
plorers, traders, priests, and soldiers who laid the foun- 
dations of our Badger state. These men were nearly all 
French ; therefore, it is to France we owe the discovery 
and exploration of Wisconsin. 

First Settlement. When the news came from Spain 
that a new world of untold riches had been discovered, 
the French, eager to obtain a share of the vast wealth to 
be had for the taking, fitted out an expedition under 
Verrazono an Italian in the employ of the King of 
France. In 1524 he explored the coast of North America 
from South Carolina to New Hampshire and thus gave 
France a claim to the continent. A few years later 



24 OUR WISCONSIN 

Jacques Cartier was sent out to explore the lands west of 
New Foundland. His voyage resulted in the discovery 
of the St. Lawrence River and his taking possession of it 
in the name of the King of France. But attempts at set- 
tlement failed, and it was eighty years before the 
French made their first permanent settlement at Port 
Royal in 1604. Four years later Samuel de Champlain 
founded Quebec which soon became the starting point for 
French explorations. 

New France. All the French possessions in America 
were named New France, and Champlain was made 
governor. He was the most brilliant and successful of 
French explorers and colonizers. In 1609 he joined a 
party of Algonkin Indians and reached the lake which 
now bears his name. Near there they met a band of 
fierce and hostile Iroquois. In a short battle the Iroquois 
were driven away in panic, but thereafter were the 
enemies of France. For a hundred and fifty years, ally- 
ing themselves with the English and Dutch colonists the 
Iroquois controlled Lake Erie and compelled the French 
to send all of their exploring parties through the region 
to the west controlled by the friendly Algonkins. This 
mistake of Champlain was largely responsible for the 
early discovery and exploration of the upper Mississippi 
Valley. 

^ Like all early explorers Champlain believed America 
to1)e much smaller than it really is. Nothing was known 
of the western country, although most men believed it 
to be but a narrow strip west of the Great Lakes through 
^'hjch rivers flowed into the China Sea. Wandering 
iff^ians brought strange tales to the settlers about the 
Region to the west and thus kept alive the desire to get 



THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN 25 

the rich trade of the East. Champlain studied such re- 
ports carefully and made a map of the region as he sup- 
posed it to be. 

Champlain was the moving spirit in all of the early 
French activities. In 1611 he established a trading post 
at Montreal. He selected young men to live among the 
Indians to study their languages and customs and to in- 
crease French influence. He sent them on long journeys 
to make treaties with the Indians and to bring back in- 
formation about the Western frontier. Through this 
severe training he developed young men who had all of 
the physical endurance of the savage combined with the 
intelligence of the white man. The explorations of these 
men greatly extended the boundaries of New France, but 
when Champlain died on Christmas day, 1635, their 
activities were discontinued for a quarter of a century. 

French Motives. In their explorations the French 
were impelled by several motives. Four which seemed 
to give direction to their work were : 

1. Desire for territorial expansion. The Frenchman 
wanted his flag to fly in every part of the world. He 
wanted to settle every available foot of land not already 
held by some other power. 

2. Religious zeal. The Catholic church, through its 
missionaries, wanted to gather all of the Indians within 
its fold. 

3. The fur-trade. Fur-trading was a very profitable 
industry. 

4. Love of adventure. Popular imagination was 
kindled by the reports of adventures to be had in the 
New World. 

5. Hope of finding mineral riches. Copper and lead 
were known among the Indians, and it was hoped that 
gold and silver could be found in great quantities. 



26 OUR WISCONSIN 

Jean Nicolet. One of the young men who heard of 
these adventures was Jean Nicolet, the son of a mail- 
carrier of Normandy. He came to Quebec in 1618 v^hen 
he was twenty years of age, a vigorous, ambitious and 
daring young Frenchman. He was immediately em- 
ployed by Champlain who sent him on a mission to the 
Algonkins. There on the Ottawa River, three hundred 
miles from Quebec and with no companions of his own 
race he spent two years, undergoing many hardships and 
perils. An old French chronicle says : 

''He often passed seven or eight days with- 
out food, and once, full seven weeks with no 
other nourishment than a little bark from the 
trees." 

Afterward he was stationed for ten or eleven years 
among the Nipissings near the lake of that name. He be- 
came one of them and seemed to enjoy their manner of 
living. He prepared notes of their life and customs 
which later fell into the hands of a French missionary. 

In 1632 he returned to Quebec, which had been re- 
stored to the French after a short ownership by the En- 
glish. Here he was employed by the company which had 
control of the development of New France. Champlain 
was anxious to have more explorations made to the west 
and Nicolet was eager to undertake the work. Accus- 
tomed as he was to the fatigues and privations of the 
wilderness and with a full knowledge of Indians and 
Indian life, he was just the man to be sent into the un- 
known West. 

"People of the Sea." One of the reasons why Cham- 
plain was anxious to have Nicolet undertake this journey 
was a story that had come from Indians trading at 
Quebec, which told of a nation of Indians dwelling some 



THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN 27 

distance westward known as the People of the Sea. The 
Frenchmen believed that these must be Chinese and 
that at last they were to reach the East by sailing west. 
These Indians were, however, a branch of the Dakotas, 
later known as the Winnebagoes but then called the 
Puants. The term piianfs means bad smelling water 
and was thought to refer to the salt water of the ocean 
as contrasted with the fresh water of the inland lakes. 
The "sea" from which they came was undoubtedly the 
Mississippi River, and the "bad smelling water" is now 
believed to have referred to a group of sulphur springs 
near Lake Winnipeg. The fanciful descriptions of these 
people had confirmed Champlain in the belief that he had 
at last found the long-sought route to China. He chose 
Nicolet as his ambassador to go to these people, make a 
treaty of peace with them and secure their trade for New 
France. 

At Lake Michigan. In July of the year 1634 Nicolet 
left Quebec in company wath some Jesuit missionaries 
who w^ere leaving to establish a mission in the Huron 
country. He went up the Ottaw^a River to his old station 
among the Algonkins. There he left the priests and went 
on alone, following the Mattawan River to its source. 
He carried his canoe and baggage over a portage to Lake 
Nipissing, crossed the lake and followed the French river 
down to Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. Champlain had 
been this far before, probably the farthest point yet 
reached in the westward exploration. Nicolet was now 
in a land absolutely unknown to white people. He spent 
some time there, gaining such information as he could 
about the People of the Sea and other tribes along the 
lake shores. He induced seven Huron Indians to ac- 



28 OUR WISCONSIN 

company him to assist him in his voyage. In a long 
birch-bark canoe they went slowly and cautiously along 
the northern shores of Lake Huron. His Indians were 
often weary and anxious to give up the trip and, like the 
sailors of Columbus, were unnerved by superstitious 
fears. However, the masterful Nicolet overcame all op- 
position and finally reached the place where dwelt The 
People of the Falls, now known as Sault Ste. Marie. 
Here he and his seven Hurons rested. Some think that 
he may have ascended the St. Mary's River far enough to 
get a view of Lake Superior although this is unlikely. 
Recuperated and encouraged, he retraced his way down 
the strait and entered Lake Michigan through the Macki- 
nac passage. For the first time a white man saw the 
broad surface of this inland sea along whose shores are 
now four important states. This lake has been called by 
many names its present one being a corruption of the 
early Indian Michigonong. Other names used have been 
Lake of the Illinois, Lake St. Joseph, Lake Dauphin, and 
Algonkin Lake. 

Leaving Mackinac, Nicolet's canoe was paddled by 
his Indians along the northern shore of Lake Michigan. 
He stopped for a brief parley with the Indians upon the 
shores of Bay de Noquet, an arm of Green Bay, and 
finally came to the mouth of the Menominee River. 
There for the first time a white man set foot on Wiscon- 
sin soil. The Menominees, who lived there, had much 
lighter complexions than any other Indians he had 
known. There Champlain's messenger learned that but a 
short distance to the south he would find his long sought 
People of the Sea. In the beginning he probably had 
some doubt about finding them to be Chinese, and long 



THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN 29 

before he reached their village he had fairly definite ideas 
about them. However, he sent one of his Hurons for- 
ward as a herald to notify the Winnebagoes that a white 
stranger was coming to oi¥er them peace and good-will. 

At Green Bay. Before leaving Quebec Nicolet had 
provided himself with a "grand robe of China damask, 
all strewn with flowers and birds of many colors." This 
robe, gorgeous as Joseph's coat, was to be worn when he 
met the Chinese ruler. He knew the value of appealing 
to the imagination of the Indian, although this was an 
extraordinary garment to wear even among savages. 
The Winnebagoes had sent several men to meet him and 
conduct him to their village. The strange procession of 
Winnebago burden-bearers, seven nearly naked Hurons 
and a white man arrayed in his many colored gown en- 
tered the excited village. As Nicolet strode forward 
"the women and children fled at the sight of a man who 
carried thunder in both hands," for thus they referred to 
the two pistols that he held. His theatrical entrance to 
the village, where now stands the city of Green Bay, 
made a favorable impression and soon a great feast was 
made for him at which four or five thousand Indians 
were present. With true French adaptability he made 
the best of the situation and with much feasting, speech- 
making and giving of presents, he won them to New 
France. He obtained their promise to come to Montreal 
to barter and an agreement not to engage in wars with 
the friendly Hurons. 

Neiar the Wisconsin. When he left the Winnebagoes, 
Nicolet proceeded up the Fox River through the great 
regions of wild rice marshes to a point near where Berlin, 
in Green Lake County, is now situated. There he made a 



30 OUR WISCONSIN 

treaty with the Indians. He was but a three days' journey 
from the Wisconsin River of which he seems to have 
heard but which he did not seek. Instead, he went south 
into the Illinois country and thus missed discovering the 
Mississippi. In the spring of 1635 he returned to Quebec. 
For nearly a quarter of a century no French voyager 
dared to follow up his achievements ; yet Nicolet had 
blazed the trail. 

Wisconsin was, as has been related, one of the earliest 
parts of America to be entered by the white man. No- 
where had an Englishman been more than a hundred 
miles from the Atlantic coast. There were not more than 
half a dozen settlements in the entire country. Nicolet 
had found the gateway through which civilization later 
entered the Mississippi valley. The French, however, 
were explorers not farmers, traders not settlers ; and 
eventually they lost the territory they had penetrated. 
Had the French induced their colonists to develop the 
agricultural possibilities of the country instead of en- 
couraging them to roam the woods for beaver peltaries, 
perhaps the history of the Mississippi Valley and the 
world would have been different. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. How many years before Wisconsin was discovered was 

Jamestown settled? Massachusetts? New York? 

2. Compare Champlain's map with the corresponding one in 

your geography. What places did he locate correctly? 
What errors did he make? 

3. Draw a map to indicate the route taken by Nicolet. 

4. Compare the story of Nicolet with that of Columbus. 

5. How did Champlain's battle with the Iroquois affect Wis- 

consin history? 



THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN 31 

6. Why were early explorers so anxious to reach the East? 
/. Compare French motives for discovery with those of the 

Lnglish. 
3. Why was Nicolet chosen by Champlain to make this long 

journey? 

9. In your United States history read the chapters on French 

explorations and discoveries. 

10. Compare the Indian population of 1634 with that of today 

as to numbers, habits, tribes, etc. 

11. Account for the name of Door Countv. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF RADISSON 

By the middle of the seventeenth century Wisconsin 
had become crowded with Indian villages and had a 
larger number of red men living within its borders than 
at any other time in its history. There had grown up a 
large fur trade with the French and with the Indians to 
the west who had never seen a white man. So profitable 
was this trade that the rulers of New France seemed to 
think it the only industry worth developing. The govern- 
ment gave a monopoly in the fur trade to a company 
known as The Hundred Associates. The company was 
also given many powers ordinarily exercised only by a 
government. In order to trade with the Indians it was 
necessary to obtain a license either from the Associates 
or directly from the government, and to pay well for the 
privilege. Goods to be traded to the Indians must be 
bought from the company at very high prices and the 
furs must be sold to them for whatever the Associates 
cared to pay. Many restrictions were placed upon the 
freedom of the trader and many rules were made which 
were extremely difficult to obey. Because of these 
restrictions many men began to trade without securing 
the necessary license. Legally they were outlaws and 
were usually called coureiirs de hois which means zvood 
^ rangers. At times they were more numerous than the 
\ licensed traders, especially at those periods when the 



THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF RADISSON Z2> 

rules were not strictly enforced or when officers encour- 
aged their violation. A few of the coureurs have left 
records of their travels, and careful historical study is 
revealing their names and deeds. 

Fi rst in W isconsin. Two young Canadian coureurs, 
Pierre Radisson and his brother-in-law, Medart des 
Groseilliers, are believed to have been the first white men 
after Nicolet to come to Wisconsin. Little was known 
of them unFil a manuscript written by Radisson was 
found in a hbrary at Oxford and published in London 
about the middle of the nineteenth century. It is the 
product of a man of limited knowledge, and its descrip- 
tions are so vague that it is difficult to ascertain exactly 
where they traveled. Radisson seems to have had many 
thrilling experiences, and his accounts of them remind 
one of the romantic adventures of John Smith in Virginia. 

Radisson and Groseilliers probably made two trips to 
the west, the second being the more important. In 1654* 
they left Quebec "to discover the great lakes that they 
heard the wild men speak of." They followed the route 
taken twenty years before by Nicolet and, Hke him, they 
traveled with Indians who accompanied them to paddle 
their canoes. They visited "ye nation with ye standing 
hairs" as the French termed the Ottawas, and spent the 
winter with the Pottawattomles on the peninsula east of 
Green Bay. They explored somewhat. Radisson writes, 
"We weare 4 moneths in our voyage without doeing any- 
thing but goe from river to river." They do not seem to 
have made any map of the region through which they 
went. Their trade with the Indians gave them a good 
idea of the country. They describe vaguely a trip to "ye 

* Evidence divided. Perhaps 1654 safer than 1658. Thwaites 
prefers 1654. 



34 OUR WISCONSIN 

greate river that divides itself in 2," w^hich may mean 
the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri. If so, they 
discovered the Mississippi many years before the date 
commonly assigned to its discovery. 

Returning to Sault Ste. Marie they explored a long 
stretch of the southern shore of Lake Superior and even 
went as far north as Hudson Bay. They returned to 
Quebec in 1656 with sixty boat-loads of valuable furs, 
and were received with great rejoicing in spite of the fact 
that they had been trading without a license. During 
their absence, wars with the Iroquois had interrupted the 
trade with the Northwest and the return of two men who 
had resumed trading with the interior tribes was looked 
upon as the beginning of a new era. 

First Habitation in Wisconsin. Three years after 
their return the two men determined upon a second 
voyage. Unlicensed traders were now forbidden to go 
into the Northwest but they left secretly for the upper 
lakes. Going along the southern shore of Lake Superior 
until they came to Chequamegon Bay, they continued 
their explorations. I^ar where the city of Ashland now 
stands they constructed the first habitation ever built by 
white men in Wisconsin and around it built a little fort 
of stakes outside of which was a long cord upon which 
bells were tied. The next winter was very severe. As a 
result, they were reduced to eating boiled skins, ground 
bone and the bark of trees. In Radisson's words, 
"finally we became the very image of Death. Here are 
above 500 dead." 

Regarded As An Outlaw. When spring came the 
Frenchmen went with the Hurons into that part of 
Minnesota lying between the St. Croix River and the 



THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF RADISSON 35 

Mississippi. Later they returned to Chequamegon Bay 
and built another fort. There they traded with the 
Hurons and after collecting a good cargo of furs returned 
to Montreal. They were not treated royally at this 
second home-coming'; they were now classed as outlaws 
and their furs were taken from them. 

Radisson w^as extremely angry at this treatment and 
went to Paris where he hoped to secure recognition be- 
cause of his services to New France. He was dis- 
appointed and went to London where he offered himself 
to the English. While there he wrote his journal. He 
succeeded in interesting some men in England whQ..or- 
ganized The Hudson Bay Company which later con- 
trolled the great fur trade of the Northwest. He died in, 
London, not highly regarded by the English and con- 
sidered a traitor by the French. 

Radisson will be remembered because he opened up 
the Wisconsin country to the fur trade, explored the 
region of Lake Superior and the vast territory border- 
ing Hudson Bay, deeply interested the Jesuit mission- 
aries Avho had much to do with the opening of the great 
Northwest to civilization, and told the story of his strange 
adventures in his journal. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What was the difference in the attitude of the French and 

that of the English toward the New World? 

2. Of what importance to France was the fur trade? 

3. Why did not the fur trade lead to permanent settlements? 

4. Compare the motives of Radisson with those of Nicolet. 

5. Why was Radisson received so warmly on his first return to 

Montreal and so differently the second time? 

6. Write a short summary of this chapter. 



CHAPTER V 



NICHOLAS PERROT, FOREST RANGER 

We have been told in the story of Radisson how the 
coureur was regarded by the government. The return 
of Radisson and Groseilliers to Montreal from the North- 
west had created great excitement and every young man 
in New France dreamed of the wealth to be found in the 
forests of Wisconsin. These men were largely the 
younger sons of the nobility of France or were returned 
soldiers. They had no ties binding them to a home, and 
with utter disregard of the hazards and hardships of 
forest life they penetrated into the remotest regions of 
the lake country. They were not careful to obtain a 
license to trade but relied upon themselves. In seeking 
furs they opened up the country to the white men. In 
fact, it is difificult to determine whether the coureurs or 
the missionaries were of greater importance in the 
development of Wisconsin. 

The Forest Ranger. The forest ranger was a pictur- 
esque character. As the trade in furs was profitable and 
the roving life, free from restraints, had many charms 
that appealed to the ardent French temperament, the 
number of traders constantly increased. Unlike the Eng- 
lishman the Frenchman did not seek to crowd out the 
Indian but adopted his habits and customs and lived the 
life of the red man. He could paint and tattoo himself, 
dance with the braves or smoke the pipe of peace in the 



NICHOLAS PERROT, FOREST RANGER Z7 

councils of the tribe. In the lodges of the Indian he 
wooed and won the dusky maidens of the woods. 

At times the ranger would be seized with a desire to 
return to the settlements on the St. Lawrence. Laden 
Avith his furs he would make his way through the wilder- 
ness until he reached a settlement. Then, having sold his 
furs, he would seek the company of others like himself 
for a season of joviality and gayety lasting until his purse 
was empty. With money gone, he would make his peace 
with the church and return to the home of the beaver and 
the lodge of the Indian. The rangers kept the friendship 
of all the Algonkin tribes but one, the Foxes, and were 
thus able to hold the trade of the region against the en- 
croachments of the English. The forest ranger was the 
advance guard of the civilization that followed the open- 
ing of the great liighwa3^s of trade in the western country. 

Nicholas Perrot. One of the most famous of the 
forest rangers was Nicholas Perrot. Little is known of 
his early years except that he accompanied missionaries 
as a hunter to provide necessities for them while they 
sought for converts among the red men. In 1665, when 
he was about twenty-one years of age, he came to Wis- 
consin and made the acquaintance of the Pottawattomies. 
He always had a strong influence over the Indians and 
was entrusted by the government to keep peace with 
various tribes. Four or five years he spent in eastern 
Wisconsin visiting and trading with the natives, joining 
in their feasts and smoking with them the pipe of peace. 

The French were extremely anxious to protect their 
fur trade from the English who were developing a trade 
of their own in the Hudson Bay country. For this reason, 
Perrot was appointed by the authorities of New France 



38 OUR WlSCOXSiy 

to assemble the western Indians in a great peace council 
at Sault Ste. Marie and to negotiate with them a treaty 
which would bind the Indians to New France. With 
this purpose in mind, Perrot spent the winter of 1670 
along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron 
where he induced fourteen tribes to send delegates to the 
meeting held June 14, 1671. Father Marquette 
was there with the Ottawas, and the famous Louis Jol- 
iet, who knew many dialects, acted as official interpreter. 
An impressive ceremony took place .with priests and 
warriors chanting the praises of God and of King Louis 
XIV. The Indians acknowledged themselves subject to 
the French king and recognized the authority of the 
French government over their territory. As a symbol of 
possession the Frenchmen nailed to a cedar pole a great 
tablet of lead bearing the arms of France. Hardly had 
the gorgeous pageant come to an end when the Indians 
celebrated the event by stealing the tablet. 

"Commandant Of the West." Perrot went back to 
the St. Lawrence, was married, became the father of 
many children, and acquired considerable influence. In 
the meantime much exploring, to be described in later 
chapters, was done in the Wisconsin country. But in 
1681 Perrot returned to the woods, and was finally made 
Commandant of the West. In 1689 he repeated on Wis- 
consin soil the ceremony that had been performed at 
Sault Ste. Marie and took possession of the land in the 
name of the King of France. He was no longer a ranger 
but held a license and had under him a company of 
twenty soldiers. The Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers 
had now been discovered. Consequently he went over 
the Fox- Wisconsin River route to the Mississippi. He 



NICHOLAS PERROT, FOREST RANGER 39 

then ascended the Father of Waters and established a 
number of French posts, one near Prairie du Chien, one 
near Trempeleau, and one at Lake Pepin. He seems also 
to have gone down the river and to have built a stockade 
to guard a lead mine he had discovered near Galena, 
Illinois. 

He had many adventures, once being condemned to 
be burned at the stake. He escaped, however, and 
managed to reach friends at the mouth of the Fox River. 
In 1699, the Fox Indians having begun war against the 
French, the King of France ordered all of the western 
forts abandoned. Perrot's career in Wisconsin thus 
came to an abrupt end and he returned to the St. Law- 
rence country a poor man. As long as he ruled in the 
West he maintained French authority and exercised a 
wonderful influence over the Indians. He died when he 
was about seventy-five years old, lonely, broken-spirited 
and neglected by the government for which he had toiled 
and borne hardships for so many years. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Compare Nicolet and Perrot. 

2. Why did the French give up their western trading posts? 

3. Why did the French use so much ceremony in dealing with 

the Indians? 

4. Describe the life of a forest ranger. 

5. How do you account for Perrot's influence over the Indians? 



CHAPTER VI 



T HE WANDERINGS OF THE BLACK GOWN S 

The Jesuits. Although the forest rangers did much 
of the exploring in New France they seldom wrote their 
stories, and as a result have received but little credit for 
their work. But close upon the heels of the soldier of 
fortune came the soldier of the cross with his crucifix. 
Not a little of the pioneer work of opening up the Mis- 
sissippi Valley to civilization was done by the Jesuit mis- 
sionaries, members of a brotherhood of the Roman 
Catholic church to whom was assigned entire charge of 
the missions in the Canadian country. These wandering 
"black-gowns,'^ as the Indians called them, were required 
to report in writing at regular intervals to their superiors 
in Paris. Their reports were collected and published 
annually from 1632 to 1672 and are now known as The 
Jesuit Relations. These reports are almost the only 
sources of reliable information concerning this interesting 
period of a history of the Northwest. 

Their Life. The story of the wanderings of these 
men of the church is one of patient devotion to work in a 
barren and unprofitable field. They had a vision of a new 
world to be brought to their church and their king. For 
this they were willing to endure every physical discom- 
fort, even undergoing the hideous tortures of the stake 
while seeking converts among the heathen red men. 
They built rude bark chapels and even when half starv^ed 



THE JFANDERIXGS OF THE BLACK GOWNS 41 

and suffering from the rigors of a northern climate, con- 
tinued to chant the simple service of their faith to a few 
miserable savages. They failed in their principal aim 
but their work was of great value to the king of France, 
for they helped to hold the Indians to their alliance with 
the French and to keep back the English. The names of 
three Jesuits-^Rene Menard, Claude Allouez and Jacques 
Marquette — are inseparably associated with the history 
of Wisconsin. 

Rene Menard. The first of these white missionaries 
' .11. ... . ..li^. ~ — "' 

to come to Wisconsin was Rene Menard. He Avas a 
white-haired man of fifty-five, "his form bent with age," 
Avhen he was summoned to go to Lake Superior and fol- 
low up the w^ork of Radisson. He accepted his new duty 
with a feeling that there he should meet his death. Going 
to Canada when a young man to work for the church, he 
had baptized over four hundred friendly Indians and had 
even worked among the hostile Iroquois. He heard the 
call of duty and could not refuse to heed it. To a young 
man the journey would have been a hardship; to an old 
man it was almost unendurable. 

He set out with some Indian companions who treated 
him cruelly. He was compelled to paddle constantly and 
to carry heavy packs over the difficult portages ; but 
through all of the terrible hardships the old man did not 
lose heart. The party reached the region of Lake Super- 
ior when an accident happened to his canoe and Menard 
with three Indians was left alone on the south shore of 
the lake. Here they suffered greatly from hunger and 
were reduced to subsisting upon soup made from ground 
bone. Ha4 Jt not been for the hospitality of a group of 
Ottawas at Keweenaw, themselves' almost at the 



42 OUR WISCONSIN 

point of starvation, they would have perished. But even 
under these circumstances the faithful priest started a 
mission. 

In the spring of^l661 a band of Hurons sent him an 
invitation to visit them near the headwaters of the Black 
River. In July he set out with a French companion an3 a 
party of Indians. Before long the Indians deserted, leav- 
ing the Frenchmen to obtain food as best they could. 
They were now on the Wisconsin River not far from the 
present city of Merrill. Either in crossing the portage 
from the AVisconsin to the Black River or in going 
around some rapids, the missionary and his companion 
Avere separated and Menard was never seen again. He 
may have perished from exposure, or a victim of the 
tomahawk of a murderous Sioux. His cassock and kettle 
were later found in the lodge of an Indian, a circumstance 
pointing to his murder. Thus passed away the great 
pioneer missionary who five y_ears before Marquette came 
to America was serving his church in AA'isconsin. 

Father Allouez. Mejiard was succeeded by Father 
Claude Allouez who in 1665 established the first jnission 
on Wisconsin soil at Chequamegon on Lake Superior. 
In honor of the governor he christened this great body of 
water Lake Tracy. Not far from the site of Radisson's 
first trading hut he erected his chapel of bark and began 
his mission. 

Allouez was a perfect type of the Jesuit missionary. 
He carried Christianity into the wilderness and from the 
wilderness he sent information about the land and people 
to his native country. He had entered the priesthood 
in France while still a boy, had received a splendid educa- 
tion and for a year had preached in a Jesuit church in 
France. His superior wrote of him, "He is possessed 



THE U'AXDERIXGS OF THE BLACK GOWKS 4.) 

of a yigprous constitution, of a fine mind and disposition, 
of good judgment and great prudence. He is firm in pur- 
pose, proficient in literature and theology and eminently 
fitted Jor missionary work." His life confirmed this 
high estimate. 

Allouez reached Quebec in 1658 where, as Nicolet had 
done, he spent some years studying the Hurons and 
Algonkins to fit himself for his work. He set out for the 
region of Lake Superior in August, 1665, with a company 
of four hundred Indians who had come to Quebec to trade 
with the French. The treatment he received from these 
savages was similar to that which poor Menard had ex- 
perienced. He was compelled to paddle and to carry- 
heavy packs until his strength gave out. "I imagined 
myself a malefactor condemned to the galleys," he wrote. 
The Indians, wishing to discourage him froni conducting 
a mission, devised many ways to compel him to turn 
back. They stole his clothing and his blankets and gave 
him almost no food. But in spite of hardshij)s his strong 
constitution and his indomitable will enabled him to 
reach Chequamegon Bay where on a peninsula he 
founded his mission and named it La Poinif. VHe re- /yxSLk 
mained there four years, undergoing every danger and 
hardship mcident to life among the savages. 

First Building in Wisconsin. For twp years he was 
stationed near the present city of Berlin where Nicolet 
had once been, but in the winter of 1671-72 he found a 
more favorable site near the rapids^f_De_Pere and es- 
tablished a mission there. TlTe following year a fine 
church, the first permanent building in AVisconsip, 
named St. Francis Xavier, was built. Allouez remained 
in Wisconsin until 1676 when he went south into Illinois. 



Ib^ '^\M^ /^-^^vuu^^ cA, 



44 OUR WISCONSIN 

He died in August, 1689, after having devoted a quarter 
of acentury'to labors among the savages. The De Pere 
rnission became, a center for the fur trade and for the 
mission work of the church. The ten years__fol_lowing_ its 
construction were the most flourishing in the history 
of Jesuit missionary work in Wisconsn. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Read in an encyclopaedia or other reference work an ac- 

count of the Jesuits. 

2. Find out what you can of the historian, Francis Parkman. 

3. What did Menard do for Wisconsin? 

4. What was Lake Superior formerly called? 

5. Locate La Pointe and De Pere on the map. 

6. What was the importance of the De Pere mission? 

7. Why were the Jesuits called bj' the Indians Black Gozvnsf 



CHAPTER VII 



JOLIET AND MARQUETTE 

In the journals of the early exp lorers are many refer- 
ences to a great river to_the w est, so that it is possible one 
of them may have discovered the Mississippi although no 
account of such a discovery has come down to us. We 
do know, however, that in 1673 Joliet and Marquette set 
out to find the Great River and that they succeeded. The 
lower part of the Mississippi had been discovered by 
DeSoto more than a,. century before, but this discovery 
had not been followed by exploration and development. 
As the French discovery of the upper Mississippi re- 
suited in exploration, trade, and settlement, the French 
are justly entitled to the credit for finding it. It is in- 
teresting to note that the exploration and settlement of 
this great river valley began near its source and slowly 
worked toward the sea, whereas almost every other, riyer 
valley has been developed from the sea toward the head- 
waters. 

Louis Joliet. Louis Joliet, who is entitled to more 
credit for the discovery of the Mississippi than he has had 
in the past, was the son of a wagon-maker employed by 
the Hundred Associates at Quebec. Here in the New 
World the future explorer was born and educated. His 
schooling was received from the Jesuits, and he early 
resolved to give his life to the service of the church. At 
the age of eighteen he became a priest but soon, renounced 

The Wisconsin Historical Society recommends that the 
spelling Jolliet be adopted. 



46 OUR WISCONSIN 

his clerical vocation and turned his attention to the fur 
trade. He learned several Indian languages and made 
numerous journeys into the wilderness. We have seen 
him acting as interpreter for Perrot in the great Indian 
gathering held at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671 v^here he im- 
pressed both the missionaries and officers as a man well 
fitted to take up the work of exploration. 

Jacques Marquette. Joliet is usually associated with 
a man of entirely different type, the Jesuit missionary, 
Jacques Marquette, who came of a race of soldiers. At 
an early age he too resolved to become a Jesuit. In 1666, 
when he was twenty-nine years of age, he was sent to 
Quebec as a missionary. AVe have seen him at Sault Ste. 
Marie and we remember that he succeeded Allouez at 
La Pointe. From there he was removed to Mackinac 
where he remained until May, 1673. A man of great en- 
terprise and a preacher of undoubted power, he was also 
one of the purest souls in the history of his order. Al- 
though he was eight years older than Joliet, the two be- 
came fast friends. 

New France now had a gOA^ernor, Count Frontenac, 
who was very anxious to have discovered the river 
of which he had heard so much. Here was a mysterious 
waterway of which no white man knew the beginning or 
the end but which was believed to empty into the Gulf of 
California and, consequently, to make easy the journey 
to obtain the riches of the Indies. Frontenac had re- 
ceived his idea of an expedition to explore the river from 
Jean Talon ; therefore to the latter we owe indirectly the 
discovery of the Mississippi. 

Exploring for Mississippi River. To carry out 
Talon's project Frontenac appointed Joliet to go in 



JOLIET AND MARQUETTE A7 

search of the Great River. In those days no exploring 
party was complete without a priest as the conversion of 
the Indians was deemed as important as the adding of 
new territory or the development of the fur trade. Jol- 
iet was instructed to go to Mackinac where Marquette 
was stationed and there to deliver orders to the mis- 
sionary to accompany his party. Joliet reached the mis- 
sion in December, 1672, and decided to spend the winter 
there. Marquette had long wanted to visit the hospitable 
Indians of Illinois and gladly embraced the opportunity 
of joining the exploring party. During the long winter 
nights by the light of the logs that blazed on the hearth- 
stone, they made plans and drew maps to guide them on 
their journey. 

The Start. On the seventeenth of May in the fol- 
lowing year Joliet and Marquette with five other French- 
men began their famous voyage in two birch bark canoes 
which were stored with a quantity of Indian corn and 
smoked beef. They went westward through the Strait 
of Mackinaw and down along the shores of Lake Michi- 
gan and Green Bay to the village of Menomonies. There 
they heard tales that would have caused men less deter- 
mined to give up their plans. They were told of ferocious 
tribes along the river who put all strangers to death, of 
demons and monsters of every kind and of heat so in- 
tense that should they escape the other perils they would 
certainly be burned to death. Marquette calmed the 
fears of the Indians, taught them a prayer and pushed on. 

Near Portage. They travelled over the route that 
had been taken by Nicolet, Radisson, and Allouez, reach- 
ing the mission near the present city of Berlin on the 
seventh day of June. Calling the chiefs and elders of the 



48 OUR WISCONSIN 

region into council, Joliet told them that the governor of 
Canada had sent him to discover new countries and his 
companion to teach Christianity to the inhabitants. The 
explorers w^ere treated with kindness and given two In- 
dians to act as guides. They followed the Fox River 
through its tortuous channel until they came to the bend 
in the river near the present city of Portage. The river 
had become a labyrinth of lakes and marshes so choked 
and covered with wild rice as to make it almost impos- 
sible to follow the channel. They were now but a short 
distance from the Wisconsin and on the threshold of the 
great discovery. They carried their canoes across the 
prairie and launched them upon the Wisconsin to con- 
tinue their journey. 

Mississippi Reached. On the seventeenth of June, 
1673, the canoes floated out upon the broad expanse of the 
Mississippi. There at the picturesque delta of the Wis- 
consin they found the noble stream which they had been 
sent to discover. It was a great moment but they had not 
yet accomplished all they had set out to do. They had 
been instructed to find out w^hether or not the Mississippi 
emptied into the Gulf of California. Information ob- 
tained from the Indians led them to believe that it flowed 
into the Gulf of Mexico. However, they continued their 
voyage down the river. As they travelled, Marquette 
made accurate observations of the country and of its 
vegetable and animal life. 

The journey down the Mississippi was not without 
adventure. Although some Indian tribes proved friendly 
others were disposed to threaten them. They went as 
far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River. At last 
they were convinced that the river would not take them 



JOLIET AND MARQUETTE 49 

across the continent to the Pacific. Reluctantly they 
turned toward Canada with their dream shattered. They 
had clung to the hope that had led Columbus, Hudson, 
Nicolet, and Cabot to undertake their great journeys of 
discovery and exploration, and like each of them had 
made an important discovery. 

Their Return. Through the burning heat of July and 
August they paddled northward against the current, 
homeward bound. Instead of returning by way of the 
Wisconsin River they followed the Illinois to the port- 
age near Chicago and in September, after a journey of 
nearly twenty-eight hundred miles in a little more than 
four rnonths, were back at the Jesuit mission at De Fere. 
As Marquette's health had failed on the return journey 
he remained at the mission while Joliet went to Quebec 
to report to his superior officers. While approaching 
Montreal the canoe in which Joliet was traveling upset 
and he narrowly escaped death. His journal and notes 
were swept away and never recovered. He had to make 
an oral report to Frontenac and retrace his maps from 
memory. Because of this accident it remained for Mar- 
quette to relate for future generations the narrative of 
this expedition. 

We know little of the later years of Joliet's life. Like 
many another brave Frenchman who had brought glory 
to France, he was neglected by his government. He was 
given, in mockery it seems, an island in the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence where he built a fort and a dwelling for his 
family. Within two years his island was taken by an 
English fleet and he and his family fell into the hands 
of the English commander. His property was thus lost, 
but he soon recovered his freedom. Of his last vears we 




Father Marquette 



JOLIET AND MARQUETTE 51 

know only that he died in poverty some time previous to 
1737, others reaping the benefits of his discoveries. 

Marquette's Last Days. A sad interest attaches to 
the fate of the gentle ]\Iarquette. After remaining at 
De Pere until October, 1674, he returned to Illinois and 
reached the Chicago River early in December. Ex- 
posure to the cold had brought a return of a disease from 
which he suffered and he was obliged to spend the winter 
in a wretched Indian hut near Chicago. There he worked 
with the Indians and held one large meeting at which he 
preached Christianity with such power that the Indians 
begged him to remain with them. But his body had be- 
come so enfeebled that he felt the end was near and at- 
tempted to return to his old mission at Mackinac in 
company with two Frenchmen. He was so weak that 
most of the time he lay in the bottom of the boat. On 
the eighteenth of May he passed away without having 
reached Mackinac. He was a young man just thirty- 
eight when he died, but he had given his life to his 
country and his God. 

It will be remembered that under the rules of the 
Jesuit "oi^deY each missionary was to send a report an- 
nually to his superior at Quebec. During the winters of 
1673 and 1674 both Marquette and Joliet had prepared 
reports from their journals. We have learned how the 
report of Joliet was lost. Marquette sent his report to 
Quebec together with his journal and a map of the 
region which had been explored, but for some reason it 
was not included in the now famous Jesuit Relations. 
The complete journal was not published until 1852. By 
tjii£time Joliet was almost forgotten and Marquette has 
received most of the credit for a discovery which belongs 
to both. 



52 OUR WISCONSIN 

There has been a great deal of unnecessary argu- 
ment as to which of the two is more entitled to be 
honored. Such argument is never profitable. These two 
men were such close friends and of such fine natures 
that it seems certain they would disapprove of contro- 
versy on this point. Joliet represents the French genius 
for trade; Marquette, the French genius for spirituality. 
Each appreciated the gifts of the other. The practical, 
hard-headed business man, Joliet, loved and admired the 
romantic and spiritual Marquette; and Marquette re- 
spected and understood the talents of Joliet. The truth 
seems to be that to Jean Baptiste Talon, intendant oF* 
Canada, belongs the credit for the idea that led to the 
discovery of the Mississippi ; to Louis Joliet, the credit 
for the execution of the plan ; and to Jacques Marquette, 
the credit for the preservation of the incidents of this^ 
discovery. To Robert Cavelier de La Salle belongs the 
glory of achieving that which made the exploration and 
settlement of the Mississippi Valley possible. His story 
Vv^e shall now hear. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. How many years elapsed between the discoveries by Nicolet 

and those by Joliet and Marquette? 

2. Trace on a map the journeys of Joliet and Marquette. 

3. What debt does Wisconsin owe to the Jesuits? 

4. What were the aims of the French explorations? 

5. How has Wisconsin perpetuated the name of Marquette? 

6. Why has Joliet received so little credit for his work? 



CHAPTER VIII 



LA SALLE AND HIS COMPANIONS 

Following the discovery of the Mississippi River a 
notable group of adventurers came to the Wisconsin 
region. By far the greatest of these men was La Salle, 
one of the most remarkable characters in American his- 
tory. With two companions, the brave and faithful 
Italian, Henry de Tonty, and the boastful friar, Louis 
Hennepin, he made the explorations that gave to France 
the great empire of the Mississippi Valley. A soldier of 
fortune, Daniel Graysolon Duluth, a cousin of Tonty, 
also played an important part in the remarkable career 
of La Salle. The story of these men and their adventures 
is as marvelous as the romances of Sir Walter Scott. 

Life and Characteristics. Robert Cavelier was born 
at Rouen, France, in 1643, on an estate known as La Salle. 
He is commonly known by the name of the estate rather 
than by the name of his family. Like many of the 
French explorers he had early in life consecrated himself 
to the priesthood. He was educated in a Jesuit school 
where for ten years his naturally strong mind developed 
imder the iron discipline of that society. La Salle was 
by nature little fitted for a life of seclusion from the 
world, and giving up his ambition to serve the church he 
emigrated to Canada where his brother Jean was living. 
On the St. Lawrence River he built himself a cabin, bar- 
tered with the Indians for furs and studied the languages 



54 OUR WISCONSIN 

and customs of the red men. His dream, like that of 
many other explorers, was to find a way to China. He 
built a trading post which his unsympathetic neighbors 
nicknamed La Chine. He dwelt among the Indians, half- 
breeds, traders, voyageurs, forest rangers, and Fran- 
ciscan monks, ruling with a rod of iron, enforcing respect 
by his energy and making enemies by the sternness of 
his discipline. He was a shy, cold, stern man but was 
liked by the Indians and the few white men who recog- 
nized his great ability. He ruled by fear rather than by 
love and was somewhat tactless in his handling of men. 
He was self-reliant and resolute, incapable of repose, 
energetic and, if stern to his followers, was pitiless to 
himself. Parkman says of him, ''He was a tower of ada- 
mant, against whose impregnable front hardship and 
danger, the rage of man and of the elements, the southern 
sun, the northern blasts, fatigue, famine, disease, dela}^, 
disappointment and deferred hope emptied their quivers 
in vain. To estimate aright the marvels of his patient 
fortitude, one must follow his track through the scenes 
of his interminable journeyings, those thousands of 
miles of forest, marsh, and river, where, again and again, 
in the bitterness of bafifled striving, the untiring pilgrim 
pushed onward toward the goal which he was never to 
attain. America owes him an undying memory; for, in 
his masculine figure, she sees the pioneer who guided 
her to the possession of her richest heritage." 

Henry de Tonty. La Salle's lieutenant, Henry de 
Tonty, was an Italian in the service of the French. He 
was the son of a banker in Italy who had invented a sys- 
tem of life insurance once very popular but now dis- 
credited. In seven campaigns on board ship and in the 




Devils Chair, at Dalles of the St. Croix 



56 OUR WISCONSIN 

galleys Tonty had fought for France. He had lost his 
right hand by having it shot away by a grenade and had 
replaced it with an artificial hand made of iron which he 
used with good effect among the Indians when they be- 
came disorderly. As he wore a glove over the hand they 
could not understand how he could deal such blows. He 
could knock out their teeth or crack their skulls at a 
single blow, hence they regarded him as a wonderful 
man. He was a bold, adventurous spirit but, unlike his 
leader, he was kind and gentle and had a tactful, sunny 
temperament. His complexion was as dark as that of an 
Indian, his hair was black and curly and his eyes fear- 
less but kindly. He could control men when the harsher 
methods of La Salle failed. 

Father Hennepin. La Salle had quarreled with the 
Jesuits but as one priest was considered necessary to 
every exploring party he chose for his companion Father 
Louis Hennepin, a member of the order of St. Fraiecis. 
Hennepin was a man of adventurous spirit and much 
sTifewdness but he was much given to magnifying his 
own achievements and belittling those of others. Clad 
in the coarse gray gown of his order, with a girdle at his 
waist, sandals on his feet, and a portable altar on his 
back he was a strange figure even in the wilderness. He 
was fond of travel in strange countries and among 
strange people, and he dearly loved adventure. His 
imagination, however, often seemed to get the better of 
his memory and many of his tales of adventure are pure 
fiction. His stories were eagerly read in Europe and 
Avere translated into almost every language spoken on 
the continent. But after making due allowance for his 
inaccuracy, his accounts of the La Salle expedition are 
Avonderfully Interesting. 



LA SALLE AND HIS COMPANIONS 57 

La_Sa[le had written of him, "It is necessary to know 
him somewhat, for he will not fail to exaggerate every- 
thing; it is his character." It is interesting to know, too. 
that Hennepin was the first white man to describe 
Niagara Falls, if indeed he was not the first white man to 
see them. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What qualities do you admire in each of these four men? 

2. Do travelers always tell the exact truth? 

3. Which of the following motives led each of these Frenchmen 

into the new country: a desire for wealth, conquest, ex- 
ploration, missionary zeal, love of adventure? 

4. What does Wisconsin owe to these men? 

5. How have the names of these men been perpetuated? 



CHAPTER IX 



LA SALLE AND THE MISSISSIPPI 

The discovery of the Mississippi by Joliet and Mar- 
quette did not result in any knowledge of the body of 
water into which this river empties, although Marquette 
seems to have suspected that it found its way to the Gulf 
of Mexico. Five years after the discovery La Salle set 
out from Canada with authority from the French king 
"to labor at the discovery of the Avestern part of New 
France" and to follow the river to the sea. He was given 
the official privilege to build forts and to engage in trade 
but he was to pay his own expenses. In September, 
1678 he sent a party of men to the banks of the Niagara 
River with anchors, cordage, sails and other supplies 
with which to build a sailing vessel for the Great Lakes. 
He had gone heavily in debt to procure this equipment, 
hoping to pay his creditors with furs. He dreamed not 
only of wealth for himself but of a great empire to be 
won for France in the unexplored West. 

*'The Griffin." Not far from the present city of Buf- 
falo, which is on Lake Erie, La Salle's men built the first 
ship that ever floated on the Great Lakes. It was named 
the Griffin. On the prow of the vessel was a rudely 
carved representation of the fabulous monster, half eagle 
and half lion, whose name the ship bore. The vessel was 
not large, as ships go, but it carried a crew of thirty-one 
men. After a journey of twenty days the vessel cast 



LA SALLE AND THE MISSISSIPPI 59 

anchor in the Strait of Mackinac from which, six years 
before, Joliet and Marquette had begun their famous 
journey. The Indians gathered on the shore were 
astonished to see the gigantic "canoe" and like the In- 
dians who first beheld the ships of Henry Hudson, mar- 
veled at a "house that walked on the water." From 
Mackinac the Griffin proceeded to Green Bay where 
La Salle collected a cargo of furs, enough to pay his 
debts and leave him money for further exploration. He 
sent the ship back to the trading post at Niagara but the 
Griffin was never heard from again. Whether it 
foundered in a storm or whether the cut-throat crew, ripe 
for mutiny before their departure from Green Bay, scut- 
tled the ship after stealing the cargo and escaped to the 
Indians of the North, remains a mystery. The Great 
Lakes have had many appalling shipwrecks of which this 
may have been the first. 

Post Established. From Green Bay La Salle with 
fourteen followers went in canoes along the western 
shore of Lake Michigan on a journey of exploration. At 
one time a violent storm compelled him to land at the 
mouth of the river where the city of Milwaukee is now 
situated. At this point was a village of Pottawattomies 
who, fearing the white men, had abandoned their cabins 
and supplies. La Salle took such provisions as he needed, 
leaving in their place a quantity of the goods which were 
usually traded to the Indians for food and furs. He then 
went around the southern end of the lake and soon 
reached the mouth of the St. Joseph River where Mar- 
quette had died. There he met Tonty, who with a 
similar party had explored the eastern shore of the lake. 
A rude stockade was built there and a few men left in 
charge. La Salle, Tonty and Hennepin pushed on. 



60 OUR WISCONSIN 

Fort Crevecoeur. Leaving Lake Michigan they went 
down the Illinois River to Peoria Lake where they built a 
fort and named it Fort Crevecoeur, The Fort of the 
Broken Heart. He had ample cause for discouragement 
as the Indians threatened hostility, his men lost heart and 
grew mutinous, the Jesuits were unfriendly and no word 
came from the Griffin. Discouraged but not defeated 
La Salle determined to make a journey on foot to Mon- 
treal to learn what had become of his boat and its cargo. 
He left Tonty in charge of the fort and sent Hennepin 
and two companions down the river with instructions to 
reach the Mississippi and explore its northern waters. 

Disasters. It took La Salle sixty-five days to make 
the journey to Montreal. He traveled more than a thou- 
sand miles through a country where every form of peril 
and obstruction beset him. Says the old chronicle, "It 
was the most arduous journey ever made by a French- 
man in America." He reached his goal only to find that 
the Griffin had not arrived at Niagara and was un- 
doubtedly lost, to discover that his agents had plundered 
him, to find his creditors trying to seize his property and 
his enemies, commercial and political, rapidly increasing 
in number. If ever a man was beset by both man and 
nature, that man was La Salle. Yet he kept up his 
courage, found more followers, obtained fresh supplies 
and returned to Peoria Lake only to learn of fresh 
disaster. 

Tonty's Hardships. Tonty, who it will be remem- 
bered was left in charge of the fort while La Salle and 
Hennepin journeyed in opposite directions, was soon 
deserted by all but five of his Frenchmen. He spent the 
fall making friends with the Illinois Indians. A war be- 



LA SALLE AND THE MISSISSIPPI 61 

tween the Illinois and the Sioux followed, in which Tonty 
nearly lost his life in trying to protect his friends the 
Illinois. Thereupon he and his five men sought safety by 
departing for Green Bay. He missed La Salle, who was 
hurrying back along the opposite shore of Lake Michigan 
with reinforcements. In Wisconsin Tonty and his men 
suffered all of the hardships of the wilderness. They 
went for days with no food except nuts, roots and wild 
garlic which they dug from under the snow. Father 
Gabriel was killed by the Indians while at prayer in a 
secluded place. Their shoes wore out and they had to 
make moccasins of beaver skin. It grew bitterly cold 
and they almost starved but the providential killing of a 
stag gave them renewed courage and supplied them with 
food. They came to an Indian village which they hoped 
would afiford relief but it was deserted. They were now 
at their last extremity and had given up hope. To^y 
was attacked by a fever and one of his men was suiTering 
terribly. When it seemed that nothing could save them, 
two Indians chanced by their camp and brought relief to 
the starving men. Among the friendly Pottawattomies 
in what is now the peninsula of Door County, Tonty 
passed the winter and recovered from the hardships of 
his terrible journey. In the spring he crossed to Macki- 
nac to which place La Salle had also returned after find- 
ing his fort deserted. Together La Salle and Tonty went 
back to Fort Frontenac to begin again. 

Second Expedition. The story of La Salle and Tonty 
and their subsequent explorations is less intimately as- 
sociated with the history of Wisconsin. In 1682 they 
undertook their second expedition down the Mississippi. 
After many exciting adventures they reached its mouth 



62 OUR WISCONSIN 

and took possession, in the name of Louis XIV, of all the 
country drained by its streams — an empire reaching from 
the Alleghanies to the Rockies. The land in this great 
valley was named Louisiana. La Salle had won an em- 
pire for his king but the king was unable to hold it. Two 
years later the enterprising La Salle endeavored to reach 
the mouth of the Mississippi by way of the Gulf of 
Mexico but the squadron missed its destination and w^as 
cast away on the inhospitable coast of what Is now 
Texas. Some of his men shot him from ambush and his 
unburied bones were left to bleach under a southern sun. 
"Starved Rock." His faithful friend Tonty had been 
left in command at Starved Rock, a fort on the Illinois 
River, where he ruled his savage vassals. He heard of 
the landing of his old commander and started down the 
river to join him. He was forced, however, to return. 
He remained at Starved Rock until 1700. In 1704 he 
died of yellow fever. He is remembered as one of the 
bravest, most loyal, steadfast and lovable of our pioneers. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What were the motives that led to La Salle's explorations? 

2. What kind of man was he? 

3. Why did the Griffin surprise the Indians? 

4. Trace La Salle's journeys on a map. 

5. Why were these men willing- to undergo such hardships? 

6. Why is La Salle's work so important? 

7. Why was the territory called Louisiana? 

8. Would you have liked Tonty? 



CHAPTER X 



FAMOUS VISITORS 

"Lake of Tears." It will be remembered that before 
La Salle left the Fort of the Broken Heart he had sent 
Father Hennepin and two companions to explore the 
upper waters of the IMississippi. They went down the 
Illinois to the Mississippi and then up the great river 
until they reached Lake Pepin where some Indians made 
them prisoners. Hennepin called this lake the Lake of 
Tears because the Indians who had captured them wept 
the whole night to induce the other warriors to consent 
to the death of their captives. Their lives were spared, 
however, and they were taken to the Minnesota villages 
of the Sioux where the Frenchmen had many curious ex- 
periences. They finally reached the Falls of St. Anthony. 
Although held as prisoners they were taken on hunting 
expeditions by the Sioux. They w^ere released by Duluth, 
Tonty's cousin, who with a small band of followers was 
trading with the Indians in behalf of Count Frontenac. 
He accompanied Hennepin and his companions over the 
Wisconsin-Fox River route to Mackinac where the 
Jesuits entertained them until spring when they returned 
to Fort Frontenac. 

Hennepin's Story. Soon after his adventure Hennepin 
returned to France where he wrote an account of his ex- 
periences in America, mingling fact with fancy until it is 
difficult to determine exactly what his real experiences 



64 OUR WISCONSIN 

were. In a second book, he claims to have traversed the 
Mississippi from its source to its mouth and to have been 
the first to reach both places. As his stories were not 
accepted as true, he spent his last years in obscurity and 
disgrace. But despite his inaccuracy, the accounts are 
invaluable contributions to American history and to the 
story of Wisconsin. Hennepin was not the real leader 
of the expedition but he was the usual and necessary 
priest who went with all such parties. Because of his 
education he was the chronicler of the journey, for which 
reason historians have quite generally given him the 
credit of being the leader although the official head of the 
party was Michael Accau. 

Duluth's Journeys. It was lucky for Hennepin and 
his companions that Daniel Graysolon Duluth appeared 
on the scene and rescued them from the Indians. Duluth 
was a powerful coureur de bois and next to Perrot the 
most important man in the fur region. He had been 
spending the winter at Mackinac where he learned that 
he was accused of being an unlicensed trader. To set 
himself right he went to France to plead his cause. So 
successful was he that he convinced the authorities that 
his trade was legal and returned to trade among the 
Sioux. Duluth made many journeys over the Fox-Wis- 
consin River route but most of his adventures have little 
to do with the history of Wisconsin. It will be remem- 
bered that he was a cousin of Tonty and that like him he 
had served as a brave soldier in Europe. For some un- 
known reason he gave up a career which promised great 
military glory to become a wanderer among the bar- 
barians of the New World. He was the first white man 
to journey in a canoe from Lake Superior to the Mis- 



FAMOUS VISITORS 65 

sissippi River, his route being by way of the St. Croix 
River. He died in 1709, the victim of diseases brought on 
by the hardships he had suffered in behalf of New- 
France. 

Pierre Charles le Sueur. Another famous visitor to 
Wisconsin in the days of its discovery and exploration, 
was Pierre Charles le Sueur. He, too, had come from 
France when a young man to have a part in the develop- 
ment of the New World. Within ten years after the 
journey of Joliet and Marquette he went over the Wis- 
consin-Fox River route, ascended the Mississippi to the 
Falls of St. Anthony and engaged in trade with the Sioux 
of that section. His fur trade became very large and as 
he had unusual business ability he soon became one of 
the most prominent of the licensed traders. He was one 
of the witnesses to Perrot's act of taking possession for 
France of the upper Mississippi region at Lake Pepin. 
To protect his trade he built forts at Chequamegon Bay 
and near the mouth of the St. Croix River. The Wis- 
consin fort became an important trading center for the 
western country. 

Discovery of Mines. In 1697 Le Sueur obtained per- 
mission to work certain ''mines of lead, copper, and blue 
and green earth" which had been discovered in the Mis- 
sissippi and Superior regions. He met with some diffi- 
culty in carrying out his project and went to France for 
authority and assistance. He returned in 1699 but in- 
stead of going north he went to the newly established 
French colony at Biloxi, in Louisiana. In December of 
the same year in company with twenty-nine inspectors, 
he went up the Mississippi and visited some mines near 
the present sites of Galena, Illinois; Potosi, Wisconsin; 



66 OUR WISCONSIN 

and Dubuque, Iowa. From there he went up the river to 
the Falls of St. Anthony and engaged again in profitable 
fur trade with the Sioux. His mining experiments ended 
in failure. However, the lead deposits which he dis- 
covered in the southwestern part of Wisconsin continued 
to be worked by the French, as bullets were very im- 
portant in the carrying on of the fur trade. 

In 1703 there was published in England a book known 
as Voyages to North America. It was written by Baron 
Lahontin, the son of a famous French engineer whose 
fortune had been lost in legal strife. This work was a 
book of travel filled with stirring tales of adventure that 
may have given Swift a hint for Gulliver's Travels. 
Lahontin's career was much like that of the other ex- 
plorers. Unlike the others, however, he was a cordial 
hater of priests and an ardent social reformer. His book 
is written in such a satirical style that it is often said to 
be a tissue of falsehoods. Nevertheless, it is a valuable 
account of the early Wisconsin and the North American 
wilderness. 

The men described in this and preceding chapters 
must not be thought of as the only Frenchmen who 
passed through or tarried in Wisconsin during the seven- 
teenth century. There were doubtless scores of priests, 
voyageurs, fur-traders and soldiers going over the Wis- 
consin-Fox River route from Canada to the Northwest. 
The ones to whom we have given our attention are those 
of whom records were left. The others died unknown 
to fame. 



FAMOUS VISITORS 67 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Make a table of the French discoveries and explorations in 
Wisconsin, using the information given in the preceding 
chapters. 

Name of discoverer or Place or 

explorer Date region Results 



2. Why did fur trading not lead to fixed settlements? 

3. Why did the French usually go over the Fox- Wisconsin River 

route? 

4. What was the importance of the missionaries taken on each 

expedition? 

5. Compare Hennipin and Marquette; Nicolet and La Salle. 

6. Find on a map of Wisconsin as many geographical names 

as you can derived from these explorers. 

7. Why did these men cling so persistently to the idea that 

China was to be reached by traveling west? 



CHAPTER XI 



THE WAR WITH THE FOX INDIANS 

One of the bloodiest struggles in the long history of 
Indian warfare was that in which the French tried to ex- 
terminate the Fox Indians of Wisconsin. For more than 
a quarter of a century there was constant war between 
the French and the Foxes. At its close these Indians 
were almost destroyed and ''the entering wedge of ruin 
for the French domain in America" had been driven into 
the Mississippi Valley. 

Wisconsin River Routes. We have seen how im- 
portant the Fox and Wisconsin River Valleys had be- 
come to the French fur traders. It was possible to take 
other routes from the Great Lakes to the interior, but 
this was the easiest to travel and was therefore the 
favorite gateway to the fur country. For many years it 
had been controlled by the stubborn and crafty Indians 
who inhabited the Fox River Valley. Nicholas Perrot 
was the first white man to visit them. His description 
of their village of six hundred cabins is a disagreeable 
picture. Accounts by Allouez and other missionaries and 
traders agree with Perrot's poor opinion of this tribe. 
However, it is only just to the Indians to say that, with 
the exception of Perrot, they found the French traders 
unjust, deceitful and vicious. As a result the missionaries 
made very little headway with them. During the period 
of discovery when Nicollet, Radisson, Marquette, Joliet, 



THE WAR WITH THE FOX INDIANS 69 

La Salle and other explorers were traveling through their 
territory, the Foxes did not molest them, but when the 
fur traders followed, there grew up a deadly enmity be- 
tween the French and the Indians which threatened to 
overthrow the work of half a century. The French gov- 
ernment therefore resolved to exterminate the Fox tribe. 
The Fox war was the result of this policy. 

Causes of the War. The long struggle between 
France and England for the control of the fur trade lay 
at the bottom of this war. The Algonkin Indians were 
generally in sympathy with the French, and the Iroquois 
with the English ; but it is not easy to see why the Foxes 
alone became the enemies of the French, as other Indians 
had the same grievances. The French fur-trade had 
passed into the control of a monopoly which had pur- 
chased from the government the exclusive right to trade 
in the territory of New France. Licenses were required 
of all traders as in the days of government control, and 
the monopoly fixed the prices of the furs bought from 
the Indians and of the goods sold to them. In spite of 
the French monopoly, English traders came and went 
freely through the Indian country. They paid higher 
prices than the French for the furs they bought, and sold 
articles w^anted by the Indians at a lower price. There 
was keen competition among them and they did a brisk 
business. Although the Indians had made treaties with 
the French they sent, secretly, many trading parties to 
the English at Albany. Here they found that a beaver- 
skin would buy eight pounds of powder, forty pounds of 
lead or six gallons of "fire-water," whereas at Montreal it 
would buy but two pounds of powder, thirteen pounds of 
lead or one gallon of "fire-water." The Indians, loving 



70 OUR WISCONSIN 

bargains as do the white men, were thus strongly dis- 
posed to trade with the English. Perrot, however, was 
so skillful in handling the Indians that for many years 
he was able to hold the Indian trade in spite of these dis- 
advantages in prices. But the Foxes were never satis- 
fied and at one time threatened to move to the Ohio Val- 
ley and form a league with the Iroquois. This would 
have been a serious blow to the French fur trade and to 
the dream of a great French empire in the New World. 
Instead of moving as they had threatened, they re- 
mained and asserted absolute control over the Wiscon- 
sin-Fox River route. They collected toll, or demanded 
it, on all the fur trade that passed up the Fox River. 
They grew bolder and began to make raids into the ter- 
ritory of the Chippewas and other tribes on friendly 
terms with the French, and even held councils with the 
Iroquois. Perrot and Duluth were able to control them 
but when these pioneers passed away the actions of the 
Foxes became unbearable. 

French Treachery. In the winter of 1706-1707 the 
French decided that it was time to begin a war of ex- 
termination. A party of French soldiers, wood-rangers 
and half-breeds, made a surprise attack against the Fox 
village near the present city of Neenah and killed several 
hundred of the Foxes and their allies, the Sauks. A few 
years later Captain Marin, who had been the leader in 
this attack, filled a fleet of canoes with men hidden under 
oilcloth blankets, to make them appear as harmless loads 
of goods, and went again to the village. He had the 
boats drawn up along the shore. When several hundred 
Indians had congregated on the banks to collect toll the 
covers were suddenly thrown off and the men began 



THE WAR WITH THE FOX INDIANS 71 

firing at the Indians. A small cannon in one of the boats 
poured a raking fire into the crowd and two-thirds of the 
Indians were killed. This was an act of treachery as 
dastardly as anything that the Indians could have done, 
and of course served to increase the hostility of the 
Foxes. But despite the great slaughter of the Indians 
enough of them were left to give the French a great deal 
of trouble, and at one time it was feared that the favorite 
route of the French by way of the Fox River would have 
to be abandoned. 

Surrender and Massacre. In the mean time the 
French, in order to hold their fur trade in Wisconsin, had 
established a trading post at Detroit. They thus brought 
their business center nearer the source of supply of furs 
and at the same time blocked the English from the Lake 
Erie country. Cadillac, the founder of the post, hoped to 
induce the Wisconsin Indians to settle there. The 
Hurons and the Ottawas did move to points near Detroit, 
and other tribes were represented in large numbers. At 
first the Foxes refused to go but finally in 1710 a large 
party of them marched overland and went into camp 
near the fort. Two years later the new governor, much 
annoyed by the thousand or more rather troublesome 
Indians, suggested to them that they return to Wiscon- 
sin. Not heeding the desire of the commander of the 
fort they were set upon by the Indians of the other tribes 
and the French garrison of thirty. The Foxes had en- 
trenched themselves in a stockade and for nineteen days 
withstood a siege which abounded in thrilling incidents, 
bold speeches and efforts to make peace. At last they 
surrendered, whereupon all but the women and children 
and about a hundred warriors who escaped were put to 



72 OUR WISCONSIN 

death. They had made an heroic defense after what 
seemed to them to be betrayal, but they were far from 
being destroyed. Before, they were enemies of France; 
now, they were filled with an undying motive for revenge. 

Return to Wisconsin. The hundred or more men 
who escaped at the time of the surrender, with the rem- 
nants of the band went straggling back to their Wiscon- 
sin woods where the larger part of their people still 
remained. There they diligently sought to unite the 
tribes into a vast confederacy which could successfully 
attack the French and lock the gates of the fur country 
against them. They were so successful that every 
Frenchman who ventured into their territory took his 
life in his hands. They attacked the Indians who were 
not united with them, reduced the Illinois Indians to a 
mere handful and almost completely stopped trading in 
Wisconsin. 

The French were now greatly alarmed for, if the 
Foxes continued to control the Fox River route, Canada 
and Louisiana would be separated and the possibility of a 
French empire destroyed. They were now in a position 
where it seemed that they must do one of two things, 
either establish free trade in New France or exterminate 
the Foxes. The government unwisely chose the second 
course and sent a considerable force of soldiers into Wis- 
consin under an experienced captain named De 
Louvigny. 

First Invasion of Wisconsin. The command left 
Montreal in March, 1716, and proceeding up the lakes 
gathered recruits from among the whites and red men 
until it grew to be an army of eight hundred, the first 
warlike expedition that had ever invaded Wisconsin ter- 



THE WAR WITH THE FOX INDIANS 73 

ritory. No opposition was encountered until the force 
reached the Fox village on the west side of the Fox River, 
opposite the present city of Neenah. There the Indians 
had built a fort surrounded by three rows of stakes, mak- 
ing a palisade, inside of which w^as a ditch or moat from 
which the defenders fired upon the enemy. Contrary to 
all the rules of Indian warfare, the Foxes held their 
ground and the French were obliged to resort to siege. 
Trenches were dug and mines were laid but, before they 
could be exploded, the Indians surrendered. Peace 
terms which seemed favorable to the Indians were of- 
fered. They agreed to give up all prisoners, furnish 
enough furs to pay the costs of the expedition and sur- 
render one Indian to be a slave for each Frenchman that 
had been killed. To bind the treaty they sent six of their 
number to be held as hostages. What had been planned 
as a war of extermination thus turned out to be little 
more than a trading expedition. The treaty so easily 
made, was soon broken. 

First Permanent Fort. One important result of this 
enterprise was the establishment in 1717 of Wisconsin's 
first permanent fort at Green Bay. The French had at 
last become enthusiastic over great schemes for opening 
up the Mississippi Valley. Mining was now being car- 
ried on in Illinois, agriculture was beginning to be 
developed and the fur trade was still important. In 
Europe many companies were being formed to develop 
this region, but, like many such schemes, all were doomed 
to failure. The most important of all these great plans 
was that of John Law. It was known as the Mississippi 
Bubble. But all of them depended upon the French con- 
trol of the Wisconsin-Fox route and the Illinois route 



74 OUR WISCONSIN 

to the south and west. A series of forts to protect the 
trade was built to control these roads. But the Foxes 
kept up an irregular warfare and threatened to destroy 
all of the plans for French power in the West. 

Indian Alliance. Indeed, the Fox Indians had never 
given up their plans for vengeance upon the French who, 
they believed, had given them just cause for grievance. 
They led the officers to believe that they had been sub- 
dued but secretly they were building up alliances with 
other Indian tribes, particularly the Sauks and Sioux. 
Among them there must have been some persuasive ora- 
tor, some Indian Demosthenes or Cicero, who by his gift 
of speech played upon the desire for revenge and arrayed 
barbarism against civilization. At the time they were 
pretending peace, they were in constant warfare with the 
Illinois who were allies of the French. Thus lightly did 
they regard the treaty they had made with De Louvigny. 

Flight of Foxes. In 1728 the governor of New 
France sent an army of four hundred French and about a 
thousand Indian allies to humble the haughty Foxes. 
Before they reached Wisconsin the Foxes and their 
friends, the Winnebagoes, heard of their coming and suc- 
ceeded in making their escape. The French found noth- 
ing but deserted villages and abandoned fields. They 
contented themselves with burning the wigwams and 
destroying the crops in the hope that the red men would 
starve during the ensuing winter. Thus another expedi- 
tion had com.e to an inglorious end. 

Offer to Surrender. The Foxes, having fled from 
their native valley, induced some Sauks and Winne- 
bagoes to move with them toward the west. Some four 
thousand in all went to seek the help of their former 



THE WAR WITH THE FOX INDIANS 75 

friends, the Sioux, but they were doomed to disappoint- 
ment as the Sioux had been won over to the French. The 
Winnebagoes, treacherous as ever, deserted and went 
over to the Sioux and the Sauks went back to Green Bay 
and made peace with the French. The Foxes, w^ho were 
now without allies, w^ent south into Iowa to pass the 
w^inter. They sent messengers to Green Bay to offer 
peace but there w^as to be no peace for them. In the fall 
of 1729 they attempted to return to their old Wisconsin 
homie but were attacked by a party of Indians under the 
direction of the French and suffered a great loss of life. 
The wretched Indians now took a last desperate step by 
sending two of their chiefs to Montreal to offer submis- 
sion. The governor accepted their proposals but ad- 
mitted that he was only waiting an opportunity to 
destroy the remainder of the tribe. 

In the winter of 1731-32 a band of Hurons and Iro- 
quois left Canada to exterminate the remaining Foxes. 
The Foxes were unprepared and three hundred fell vic- 
toms to this assault. Thirty of them escaped and their 
proud and haughty chief, Kiala, w-ho w^as a man of un- 
usual ability, went to the governor and offered his life for 
the lives of the remainder of his tribe. Instead the 
governor seized him and transported him to the French 
island of Martinique w^here, in the blazing tropical heat, 
he soon died. 

Close of the War. It now seemed that the Fox wars 
were over but the governor gave orders that the thirty 
or more remaining warriors be captured and brought to 
Montreal. This was another mistake as the other In- 
dians, although they hated the Foxes, saw in their fate a 
promise of their own. Some of the tribes took pity on 



1(, OUR WISCONSIN 

the few Indians that remained of a once powerful nation 
and took them into their villages. The Sauks were 
especially kind to their former allies and treated them 
with the finest of Indian hospitality. The French com- 
mander at Green Bay asked them to surrender the Foxes 
to him, and, upon their refusal, with a small guard went 
in person to bring away the fugitives. A battle followed 
in which both sides lost heavily, the commander and his 
son falling side by side. The Sauks and Foxes, now 
united as one nation, deserted the valley of the Fox 
River and made their homes in the lead regions of south- 
western Wisconsin, in eastern Iowa and along the Rock 
River. Although there was trouble for twenty years or 
more with the Indians, the Fox-Wisconsin route was 
again free to the French. The long and bloody war 
closed with both sides weakened. The French had used 
every means to crush their enemy, but they never were 
able to make their victory complete. 

Effect upon History. This war had several effects 
upon history. The closing of the Fox-Wisconsin route 
and the dangers of the Illinois route caused the develop- 
ment of passages by way of Lake Superior; the far 
regions of Canada were explored ; portages from Lakes 
Erie and Ontario to the Ohio were opened ; and, as a re- 
sult, the French clashed with the English, a fact which 
helped to bring about the French and Indian War. The 
French also received valuable training in savage war- 
fare which they used with such success against Brad- 
dock. The principal result, however, was to set in motion 
the forces that gave the English control of America. The 
great colonial problem of the eighteenth century was to 
determine whether the great Mississippi and St. Law- 



THE WAR WITH THE FOX INDIANS 77 

rence Valleys were to be under English or French con- 
tfot 'The steady resistance of the Foxes weakened the 
French and caused them to adopt policies which were 
riimous and which resulted in the downfall of New 
France. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why did the Foxes become enemies of the French? 

2. Why were most of the other tribes friendly to them? 

3. Why do the characteristics shown by the Foxes indicate that 

their name was an appropriate one? 

4. What names on the Wisconsin map may be traced to the 

Fox wars? 

5. Why was the Wisconsin-Fox route so important? 

6. What were the causes of this war? its results? 

7. Where and when was the first permanent fort established 

in Wisconsin? 



CHAPTER XII 



UNDER THE FLAG OF ENGLAND 

French and Indian War. While the French were 
developing the fur-trade through the upper part of the 
Mississippi Valley, the English had crossed the Alle- 
ghenies and were beginning a westward movement 
toward the upper waters of the Ohio. A group of Vir- 
ginians had organized the Ohio Company to engage in 
the fur-trade and to settle in the country already claimed 
by France. The French, in order to intercept this ad- 
vance of their rivals, built Fort DuQuesne at the junc- 
tion of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. A 
small force under George Washington was sent to drive 
them away but was defeated. Thus began the conflict 
known in America as the French and Indian War and in 
Europe as the Seven Years War. The firing of a gun 
in the woods of North America brought on a conflict 
which drenched Europe in blood. Until 1758, or four 
years after the war began, the English colonists carried 
on the war against the French and Indians without much 
help from the mother country. At last England sent 
General AVolfe with a large army of regular soldiers to 
capture all of the French strongholds. In September, 
1759, Quebec was taken and in the following year Mon- 
treal was captured. New France had fallen and the 
dream of a French colonial empire was at an end. The 
war was formally closed by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. 



UNDER THE FLAG OF ENGLAND 79 

This treaty gave to England all of the French possessions 
east of the Mississippi and to Spain all of the lands to the 
west. Wisconsin thus became a part of the British 
Empire. 

Wisconsin becomes English Territory. Wisconsin 
was too far removed from the scene of conflict to be over- 
run with soldiers although Wisconsin Indians, fur- 
traders and forest-rangers went to Canada and took an 
active part in the struggle to save New France. On the 
twelfth day of October, 1761, seventeen soldiers of En- 
gland under the command of Captain James Balfour and 
Lieutenant James Gorrell marched into the tumbled- 
down stockade at Green Bay, hoisted the flag of England 
and took formal possession of the country. The French 
had called the stockade Fort St. Francis, but Captain 
Balfour promptly changed its name to Fort Edward 
Augustus. The Indians accepted the change from 
French to English control with little show of feeling. 
They liked the French better but the English paid them 
better prices for their furs. The English soldiers at the 
fort looked forward to a lonely winter as most of the 
Indians had gone west with their winter hunting parties. 
Two days of the cheerless life was enough for the captain 
who returned to Mackinac leaving Gorrell in charge. 

English Occupation. It was not a pleasant outlook 
for the English lieutenant. In all of the country west 
of Lake Michigan his was the only British force. But one 
family of Indians was near him, and it was two hundred 
and forty miles to the nearest trading post at Mackinac. 
To reach the French settlements on the Mississippi it 
was necessary to undertake a canoe voyage of eight 
hundred miles to the southwest. Everywhere else was 



80 OUR WISCONSIN 

the wilderness broken here and there by some wretched 
Indian village at the foot of a rapids or near a portage. 
French trading parties went through the country fre« 
quently, and they never forgot to poison the minds of the 
Indians against the little garrison in the old stockade. 
Now and then small groups of Indians straggled into the 
fort, spies sent to discover the purpose of the English. 
They were well treated and went away satisfied that an 
era of good feeling was to follow the English occupation 
of the country. 

In the spring the Indians who made their home in the 
region of Green Bay returned from their winter hunt. 
Lieutenant Gorrell busied himself in winning their good- 
will. He* had six belts made and gave one to each nation 
visiting the fort. To counteract the French intrigues he 
dealt liberally with the Indians by giving them ammuni- 
tion and other supplies. Thus with feasting, present- 
giving and many long speeches in which the Indians de- 
lighted the red men were won to the side of the new 
rulers of the country. They promised to befriend the 
English traders, to become true and loyal subjects of the 
English king and to turn a deaf ear to the flattery of the 
French. An era of peace seemed about to descend upon 
Wisconsin, when the Pontiac uprising in 1763 threw the 
entire west into turmoil. 

Pontiac's Confederacy. Pontiac, the principal chief 
of the Ottawas, had organized a confederacy among the 
western tribes and hoped by means of it to drive out the 
English. This crafty chief was a man of genius worthy 
to rank with King Philip, Tecumseh and Sitting Bull. 
His motives were in part patriotic but he was anxious 
also to avenge himself for fancied wrongs. The Indians, 



UNDER THE FLAG OF ENGLAND 81 

as we have seen, are not easily organized to work in 
groups but are intensely individual and as individuals 
lack self-control and steady purpose. All of their con- 
spiracies had, therefore, failed. 

Pontiac's plan was to so organize his followers that an 
attack could be made on a given day and all of the En- 
glish posts captured at once, but like its predecessors it 
was not a success. All sorts of schemes and strategems 
were devised by which the Indians could enter the forts 
and be ready for the day of capture. At Detroit an 
Indian woman betrayed the plot and it failed. At Macki- 
nac the Indians gathered in front of the fort to play their 
game of la crosse. The garrison gathered outside to 
watch the game, which soon became exciting. The ball, 
as if by accident, flew over the pickets with the Indians 
following it pell-mell into the stockade. Once within the 
enclosure they flashed their tomahawks, gave their war 
cry and in a savage onslaught killed all of the English 
soldiers but left the French unmolested. 

Gorrell leaves Green Bay. The Indians at Green Bay 
remained loyal to the English although Gorrell learned 
of a plot to take Fort Edward Augustus and prepared to 
leave. It seemed to be necessary for him to get away 
without the Indians suspecting his intention. With his 
usual shrewdness he distributed presents among the 
natives, told them that he was about to go to the aid of 
his fellow soldiers across the lake and asked them to care 
for the fort during his absence. The proposed departure 
attracted much attention among the Indians and groups 
of them came to the fort to share in the distribution of 
presents, soon depleting Gorrell's available supply. 
Meanwhile the agents of Pontiac were everywhere busy. 



82 OUR WISCONSIN 

The Chippewas, who were most active in Pontiac's plans, 
were unable to prevent Gorrell's departure, as a body of 
their enemy, the Sioux, appeared and took the side of 
the Englishmen. On the twenty-first of June the lieutenant 
and his English traders sailed away from Green Bay. 

Fort Edward Augustus, thus abandoned, fell into 
decay and once more the French were left in undisputed 
quiet. A French and Indian community grew up at the 
Bay. It was not until 1814 that the English flag again 
floated over a Wisconsin fort and then it remained but a 
few months for, on the twenty-fourth of May, 1815, the 
American flag took its place. 

After the French were driven out of Canada the Hud- 
son Bay Company sent out fur-traders all over the North- 
west. Englishmen who had attempted to trade in the 
fur country when it was under the flag of France found 
their way barred by French hostility and the preference 
of the Indians for Frenchmen. Now they could trade 
on equal terms with the Frenchmen, and, as we have 
seen, held possession of Wisconsin long after the War of 
Independence had brought it under the stars and stripes. 
They expanded the trade of the region and made it more 
prosperous than it had been before. 

Fur Trading, Chief Industry. The prosperity of Wis- 
consin then seemed to rest upon the bartering of furs. 
Fur-traders generally chose the, sites of Indian villages 
for their trading posts. Around these there grew up little 
settlements of French-Canadians, Indians and half- 
breeds. They led an easy-going life, free from govern- 
ment control. It mattered little to them which flag flew 
at the post. All the control that was needed was exer- 
cised by the fur-traders who kept the upper hand and 



UNDER THE FLAG OF ENGLAND 83 

who made their word law. The settlements were full of 
people who loved to meet and tell stories, smoke and 
enjoy whatever music was offered. Every settlement 
had some one who could play the little French fiddle, and 
songs and gay melodies frequently echoed through the 
woods. Until the fur trade ceased to be the principal 
industry of the state the old French life remained and 
French social customs were in almost exclusive use. Al- 
though the English had claimed the country they had 
never made it English. Except for a legal claim they 
never exercised much influence in our state. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. In your United States history you will find a chapter given 

to the French and Indian War. Get clearly in mind the 
causes, principal battles and results of this war. 

2. If you have access to a copy of Parkman's "Conspiracy of 

Pontiac," read some portions, at least, of it. 

3. How did the capture of Quebec affect the history of Wis- 

consin? 

4. Name some Wisconsin towns and counties which have a 

French origin. 

5. Who were more entitled to the Mississippi Valley, the En- 

glish or the French? 

6. Why did not Pontiac succeed? 

7. Do you think the white men were fair to the Indians? 

8. Why were the Indians more friendly to the French than to 

the English? 



CHAPTER XIII 



CHARLES LANGLADE 



Within a year or two after the departure of the En- 
glish from Fort Edward Augustus there came to Green 
Bay the Langlade family who were long given credit for 
being Wisconsin's first permanent white settlers. It 
was not long until they were the leading land owners 
and merchants of the Fox River Valley. Their names 
have become inseparably associated with the history of 
Wisconsin. Charles Langlade is often called the first 
citizen of Wisconsin. We do not know with any degree 
of certainty who the first permanent settlers of Wisconsin 
were, but Charles Langlade was the first to leave a record 
behind him. 

Early Life. Charles Langlade was born at Mackinac 
in 1729. HTs father, Austin Langlade, was a Frenchman 
and his mother was a daughter of one of the head chiefs_ 
of the Ottawa Indians. At the mission the priests tried 
to interest the young half-breed in book knowledge but 
he loved out-door life more than books and the scalping 
knife more than the alphabet. While still a boy he went 
with an Indian uncle on the warpath. When he grew 
to manhood he had a remarkable influence over the 
Ottawas. 

Years before the Langlades went to Green Bay to 
make their home they had frequently visited the place. 
It seems probable that the father and son, who had made 



CHARLES LANGLADE 85 

many trading voyages into the country, started a trad- 
ing branch there as early as 1746. They had been quick 
to recognize the advantages of the location of Green Bay 
and they early planned to make it their home, but the 
Pontiac uprising induced them to stay at Mackinac until 
1764 or 1765. 

Exploits. One of the first exploits of Charles was to 
lead an expedition in the Fox wars to avenge the death 
of the captain who with his son had been shot in one of 
the early battles of the Fox war. Later he went as 
leader of a party of Indians to prevent English attempts 
at colonization in the Ohio country. He defeated a party 
of Miamis at the post of Pickawillany, killing the chief 
and eleven of his warriors. This struggle helped to 
bring on the French and Indian war. 

Braddock's Defeat. In z\ugust, 1754 Langlade mar- 
ried Charlotte Bourassa, a French girl of beauty and 
character. According to the accounts of the time she was 
greatly in fear of the Indians and her experiences at 
Green Bay caused her much suffering. The year follow- 
ing his marriage Langlade was summoned to go on the 
warpath against the British. The English army com- 
manded by General Braddock and guided by the young 
Virginian, George Washington, was marching against 
Fort DuOuesne. Langlade planned the attack as a re- 
sult of which the English were so decisively defeated and 
which is known in history as Braddock's defeat. Brad- 
dock was himself mortally wounded, and, except for the 
presence of mind of Washington whose advice the 
British general had refused to follow, few of the soldiers 
would have escaped the tomahawk and scalping knife. 
As it was, more than a thousand soldiers and about ninety 



86 OUR WISCONSIN 

officers lost their lives. The brilliant red uniforms of the 
dead soldiers were taken from their bodies by Langlade 
and carried back to the western lodges where they were 
greatly admired by those Indians who had not gone on 
the expedition. 

Transfer of Allegiance. Langlade continued to be 
called upon by the French to lead Indians against the 
British. He led a successful attack against Fort William 
Henry and was rewarded by being made a lieutenant and 
given a salary of a thousand francs annually. In 1759 
with Menominees, Sauks, Foxes and Chippewas from 
Wisconsin and Ottawas from Canada he was sent to aid 
in the defense of Quebec. Here Langlade performed a 
service which but for the stupidity or delay of others 
would have prevented the capture of that great French 
stronghold and perhaps have changed the history of 
North America. He discovered the English crossing the 
river to carry out Wolfe's plan of assault and at once 
sent word to the French commander that an immediate 
attack would prevent its success. While the French 
officers were leisurely debating what to do, the oppor- 
tunity was lost. On the plains of Abraham on the fatal 
day when Montcalm and Wolfe died, Langlade fought 
fiercely and well for the French cause. But when Quebec 
was surrendered he returned to his home and took up 
his work as a trader. With the fall of New France he 
transferred his allegiance to his new masters, the English. 

L^anglade had an intimate knowledge of what the In- 
dians Avere thinking and doing. When Pontlac was at- 
tempting to organize his plan of exterminating the white 
men he endeavored to warn the English commander at 
Mackinac but no attention was paid to him. The 



CHARLES LANGLADE 87 

massacre occurred but he had done as much as he could 
to prevent it. He now moved to Green Bay and was 
made head of the Indian department there, managing 
affairs to the entire satisfaction of the British. 

With British Army. Always loyal to the flag under 
which he lived and to his employers, Langlade sided with 
the British during the American Revolution. He raised a 
force of Wisconsin Indians to march against the army 
of George Rogers Clark, but the surrender of the British 
general at Vincennes occurred before he could go to his 
relief. He was with Burgoyne, but his fierce warriors 
were disgusted with what they thought was the weak- 
ness of the humane policy pursued by the British gen- 
eral and left for home. 

Old Age. Lcmglj^[£!^_iiLd-age>^^ peace at 

Green Bay. He had received valuable grants of land 
and an annuity of eight hundred dollars from the British 
government. He was wont to gather his grandchildren 
about him and tell them the story of his eventful life and 
the ninety-nine battles and skirmishes in which he had 
taken part. He died in 1800, eighteen years before the 
death of his wife. Following a Canadian custom the 
people of Green Bay raised a flag pole in his memory and 
elriphasized the ceremony by cheers and volleys of 
musketry. It was a token of the affectionate reverence in 
which he was held by the people of the settlement. The 
Indians gave Langlade a name which expressed their 
idea of him. .It was A-ke-wau-ge-ke-tan-sOj meaning He- 
who-is-fierce-for-the-land. 



88 OUR WISCONSIN 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What places in Wisconsin are named after Langlade? 

2. Why should he be called the first citizen of the state? 

3. How did Langlade help to bring on the French and Indian 

War? 

4. Read an account of the battle of Quebec. What were its 

principal results? 

5. Burgoyne was considered too humane by the Indians. Can 

you tell why? 

6. Why was it dangerous for the French officers to debate what 
♦ they should do at the battle of Quebec? 

7. What does Wisconsin owe to Langlade? 



CHAPTER XIV 



ENGLISH TRAVELERS IN WISCONSIN 

After the fall of New France and the suppression of 
the Pontiac uprising, Englishmen began to come into the 
Wisconsin territory to trade with the Indians. Men like 
Charles Langlade went freely through the country and 
English traders and travelers came and went with the 
same freedom that the French had once enjoyed. Like 
the early French traders they left few records. Conse- 
quently, our knowledge of their work is not so complete 
as we should like to have it. As early as 1762 an English- 
man was at Milwaukee. Three years later Alexander 
Henry, a native of New Jersey, opened headquarters at 
Chequamegon Bay and conducted an extensive trade 
with the Indians. He began operations at Mackinac and 
was there when Its garrison was massacred in 1763. In 
1765 he obtained a monopoly of the Lake Superior fur 
trade which he shared with Jean Baptlste Cadotte. 

Alexander Henry. Upon reaching Chequamegon, 
Henry found the Indians, who occupied fifty lodges there, 
in desperate poverty. The French and Indian wars and 
the Pontiac conspiracy had so interrupted their trade 
that they were on the point of starvation. He gave them 
goods amounting in value to three thousand beaver skins. 
To repay him the Indians went on a great hunt for fur- 
bearing animals. When they returned they brought 
great quantities of furs and as payment demanded rum. 



90 OUR WISCONSIN . 

Because he refused to give it to them, they threatened to 
search his cabin. Henry's men fled, but, seizing* a gun, 
he declared he would shoot the first Indian who made a 
hostile move. The Indians left, but Henry, deciding to 
take no more chances, buried all the rum he possessed. 
The savages caused him no more trouble but sold him 
their furs and paid their debts. When the Indians went 
on the warpath against their enemies, the Sioux, he 
closed up his trading-post and went to Mackinac. Al- 
though he continued in the fur trade for many years, he 
never again made Wisconsin his headquarters. He died 
in Montreal in 1784 at the age of eighty-four. 

Jonathan Carver. One of the first English travelers 
to explore the Wisconsin region was Captain Jonathan 
Carver of Connecticut. He had served in the English 
army in Canada and had become greatly interested in 
the western country. He read the works of Hennepin 
and LaFontain and resolved to make the journey into 
the upper Mississippi Valley to test the truth of their 
narratives. He spent three years in traveling in this 
region and wrote a book which had a remarkable sale in 
Europe. It was translated into French, Dutch and Ger- 
man and became the most popular book of travel in the 
countries where these languages were spoken. The book 
was a very interesting account of his five thousand mile 
journe}^ He was the first man to give an intelligent ac- 
count of this region to the English speaking world, and 
there is no reason to doubt the truthfulness of his nar- 
rative. 

At Green Bay. Believing that he would be safer 
traveling as a trader, Captain Carver fitted himself out 
with gifts and articles for barter. On the eighteenth of 



ENGLISH TRAVELERS IN WISCONSIN 91 

September, 1766 he arrived at Green Bay where he found 
that Fort Edward Augustus had been abandoned the 
previous year. A few famihes of easy-going French were 
living at the Bay. He remained just long enough to jot 
down some notes about the vegetation and the soil. A 
few days later, ascending the Fox, he reached the great 
town of the Winnebagoes on a small island at the en- 
trance of Lake Winnebago. He found it ruled by an 
Indian queen, the widow of a French trader, Decorah, 
who bore the poetical name Glory of the Morning. She 
was not as beautiful as her name but was very hospitable, 
entertaining Carver ''in a very distinguished manner" for 
four days. 

At Prairie du Chien. Almost a month after he left 
Green Bay Captain Carver arrived at Prairie du Chien 
where he found an Indian village of considerable im- 
portance. He described it as a large town containing 
about three hundred families. ''The houses are well 
built after the Indian manner and pleasantly situated on a 
very rich soil, from which they raised every necessary of 
life in great abundance," he wrote. "I saw many horses 
here of good size and shape. This town is a great mart 
where all the adjacent tribes, and even those who inhabit 
the most remote branches of the Mississippi, annually 
assemble about the first of May, bringing with them furs 
to dispose of to the traders. But it is not always that 
they conclude their sale here ; this is determined by a 
general council of the chiefs, who consult whether it 
would be more conducive to sell their goods at this place 
or carry them on to Louisiana or Michilimackinac.'* 

From the earliest times this broad plain lying be- 
tween the steep bluffs of the Mississippi Valley had been 



92 OVR WISCONSIN 

a convenient meeting place for natives and fur-traders. 
There they traded, had merry parties or camped for con- 
siderable periods of time. Both La Salle and Perrot had 
trading stations there, but it is not known when or by 
whom the first permanent white settlement was made. 
Like the first white residents of Green Bay these pioneers 
left no record of their activities. As early as 1773 there 
was a white community of considerable importance 
located at Prairie du Chien although Carver does not say 
that any white people lived in the Indian village. 

At Lake Pepin. With a French companion and a 
Mohawk Indian, Carver ascended the Mississippi and 
reached Lake Pepin on the first day of November. There 
he had his attention called to some peculiar mounds 
which he examined carefully. He was the first white 
man to describe these Indian mounds to Europeans. He 
spent the winter among the Sioux, traveling considerably 
in the country west of the Mississippi. In their great 
council cave the Indians gave to him and his descendants 
forever a tract of land about 1400 square miles in area, 
which included the entire northwestern part of Wiscon- 
sin. This gift has caused an endless number of law- 
suits. Congress investigated the claims of the heirs of 
Carver and denied them but the term Carver's Tract ap- 
peared upon the maps of the United States for many 
years. 

Return to Mackinac. After spending some time in 
the Lake Superior region Carver returned to Mackinac. 
In his little birch-bark canoe he had made a journey of 
nearly twelve hundred miles. His voyage into the North- 
west while wnt-hout material results awakened new in- 
terest in the country. Schiller, the great German poet, 
was inspired by his descriptions to write the Death Song 



ENGLISH TRAVELERS IN WISCONSIN 93 

of a Nadowessie Chief, an important poem. That Carver 
had in him something of the prophet is indicated by the 
following passage from his Travels : 

''As the seat of empire from time immemorial has 
been gradually progressing tOAvard the west, there is not 
doubt but that at some future period mighty kingdoms 
will emerge from these wildernesses, and stately palaces 
and solemn temples with gilded spires reaching to the 
skies, supplant the Indian huts whose only decorations 
are the barbarous trophies of their vanquished enemies." 

Other travelers followed Carver and many traders 
took up the Avork of Henry in the Wisconsin region. One 
of the most interesting was Peter Pond, who traveled 
over the same route as Carver. He helped form the 
North West Company w^hich soon dominated the fur 
trade. Gringnon, Faribault, Rolette, La Ronde and 
Dousman were other famous names in the fur-trade 
which John Jacob Astor of New York later controlled. 
By 1834 there were fifty trading posts in Wisconsin 
many of which became important cities. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Locate on the map all places mentioned in the chapter. 

2. Why were the Indians so poor after the French and Indian 

War? 

3. How does the story of Henry's escape compare with the 

rescue of Captain John Smith? 

4. For what are we to remember Captain Carver? 

5. Which seems to have been settled first, Green Bay or Prairie 

du Chien? 

6. Why cannot the exact dates of these settlements be given? 

7. What advantages had Prairie du Chien as a center for fur 

trading? 

8. Imagine yourself at one of the early trading posts and write 

a letter to a friend describing it. 



CHAPTER XV 



WISCONSIN IN THE REVOLUTION 

Although Wisconsin was a long way from the Atlan- 
tic coast where the American Revolution began and 
where its principal battles were fought, the Northwest 
supplied one of the causes and one of the most important 
events of that great struggle for independence. It will 
be remembered that at the close of the French and Indian 
war all of New France was ceded to the British govern- 
ment. The colonies on the Atlantic coast had been set- 
tled by Englishmen but Canada and the Mississippi Val- 
ley had been developed and settled by Frenchmen. Both 
France and England then regarded colonies merely as 
sources of profit for the mother country. Acting upon 
this theory the British government immediately began 
to enforce a series of measures, of which the Stamp Act 
was one, so oppressive that the colonies began the strug- 
gle for their independence which we know as the Revo- 
lutionary War. 

Quebec Act of 1774. Among the laws enacted by 
the British Parliament that led to war was the Quebec 
Act of 1774. This brought the entire Northwest, includ- 
ing the present state of Wisconsin, under the govern- 
ment of Quebec, abolished the free system of English 
law, and established the laws which had been in force 
under the government of France. As the charters of the 
eastern colonies generally granted them the land west- 



WISCONSIN IN THE REVOLUTION 

ward to the Pacific, the Quebec act deprived them of 
much territory. Parliament even went so far as to make 
laws prohibiting colonizing- in the Northwest. The 
British government in its blindness seemed to be trying 
to carry out the very policies that had led France to lose 
its American empire. Because it was immediately profit- 
able to Great Britain, the fur trade was considered to be 
of more importance than the development of the country. 

"The Hair-Buyer General." The Revolution had 
been in progress on the Atlantic coast for two years be- 
fore the news of it reached the few inhabitants of the 
scattered villages west of Lake Michigan. It is doubtful 
if even then they would have known or cared much about 
it but for the efiforts of General Hamilton, the British 
commander at Detroit, to stir up the Wisconsin Indians 
against the Kentuckians who were carrying on America's 
war in the west. He made an efifective appeal to the 
savages by offering a reward for every American scalp 
taken during the conflict and became known as The Hair- 
Buyer General. He had no great difficulty in inducing 
the Indians to become the allies of the very men they had 
been tomahawking twenty years before. The English 
had been more successful in their treatment of the In- 
dians than were the Americans, who wanted to settle 
the land, cut down the forests, make settlements and 
drive the Indian out. The English, on the other hand, 
were desirous of keeping the land in Its primitive state to 
maintain the fur trade. It is easy to see, therefore, why 
the Indians, half-breeds and French were on the side of 
the English and opposed to the Americans. 

In 1777, two years after Lexington and Concord, 
Hamilton organized war parties in Wisconsin to assist in 



96 OUR WISCONSIN 

the capture of the American town of Vincennes and other 
settlements in the Ohio Valley. From his headquarters 
at Detroit he directed the attacks which brought the west 
to a state of panic. He seems to have been a brave, 
audacious, persistent man and without any scruples as 
to methods. The backwoodsmen were ambushed, their 
posts burned and their towns destroyed. Soon all but 
five or six hundred had been killed, taken prisoner or 
been driven across the Alleghanies to their old homes. 

George Rogers Clark. Chief among the men who 
entered into the plans of the British were Charles Lang- 
lade and his nephew, Charles Gautier. Gautier, like his 
uncle, was a dashing son of the woods who knew no 
fear and loved adventure for adventure's sake. He spoke 
the languages of all the northwestern tribes, and with his 
war belts went from village to village along the Fox and 
Wisconsin. As a result of the efiforts of these two men a 
large number of Indians were induced to go on the war- 
path against the brave Virginian, George Rogers Clark, 
who was defending the western country. But before 
they were able to attack they learned that Hamilton had 
been captured at Fort Vincennes. Without a single 
scalp, they returned home in disgust. 

Although none of the incidents of the George Rogers 
Clark expedition took place on Wisconsin soil, they 
played a large part in determining the future of the state. 
Clark was then but twenty-six years of age, tall, com- 
manding, and like Washington, a backwoods land sur- 
veyor. He had come from an old Virginia family and 
had a fair education. He had traveled over most of the 
western region either as a hunter or to survey the land. 



WISCONS.IN IN THE REVOLUTION 97 

He knew its trails, forts, and its people, both red and 
white, perfectly. With" him were Daniel Boone, Ben- 
jamin Logan and other border heroes who had come to 
Kentucky in 1776 to organize the settlers against their 
savage foes. 

After studying the situation, Clark decided that the 
most effective defense was to carry the war into the 
enemy's country. He went to Virginia and laid his plans 
before Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia. He 
was given five hundred pounds of powder, made a colonel 
and empowered to raise a company of men to carry out 
his plans. With a small force of frontiersmen, one hun- 
dred and fifty-three in all, he marched into the Illinois 
country. Through the influence of a priest. Father 
Gibault, Kaskaskia and Cahokia were persuaded to sur- 
render without the firing of a shot, Vincennes was also 
surrendered and within thirty days Clark had w^on the 
entire Illinois territory without the loss of a single life. 

Recapture of Vincennes. General Hamilton soon 
heard of the surrender of the forts and, with a force of 
eight hundred men, marched from Detroit to recapture 
Vincennes. Part of his army were Indians from Wis- 
consin who had been recruited by Langlade and Gautier. 
Not knowing how numerous — or, rather, how few — the 
Americans were, Hamilton besieged the fort and de- 
manded its surrender. Clark had left Captain Helm and 
one private to hold the fort. The two plucky Americans 
sent back the defiant answer that they would surrender 
if permitted to march out with the honors of war ; other- 
wise, they would defy the British to take the fort. Gen- 
eral Hamilton accepted the proposal. It is easy to 
imagine his surprise when from the fort there marched 
the "army of defense," — one captain and a private. 



98 OUR WISCONSIN 

Clark's Heroic March. When George Rogers Clark 
heard that the British had recaptured Vincennes, he de- 
cided to make another bold stroke. He had learned that 
the greater part of Hamilton's expedition had disbanded 
for the winter, leaving less than a hundred men to defend 
the fort, and that in the spring Hamilton intended to 
launch a larger party against the remaining posts. It 
was two hundred miles from Kaskaskia, where Clark 
was, to Vincennes but in spite of almost insuperable 
obstacles he set out in the dead of winter to surprise 
Hamilton. The march of his handful of men, without 
provisions and with little ammunition, over miles of land 
covered with ice and water, where they had to wade 
sometimes up to their necks, in weather so cold that their 
clothes froze as solid as coats of mail, is one of the most 
heroic in history. Clark had with him less than two 
hundred men to undertake the capture of a fort defended 
by artillery and well provisioned. The march across the 
country was attended with such hardships that it seemed 
as if human endurance could not meet the test. Clark 
and his officers were often at their wits' end to know 
how to keep the men in good humor when they were 
suffering with cold and hunger. He inspired his men by 
having them join in singing patriotic songs. Once he 
mounted his drummer boy on the shoulders of a ser- 
geant who was six feet, two inches in height and ordered 
him to advance into an icy flood. With Clark following 
and the drummer beating the charge, the men followed 
with enthusiasm. At times they were difficult to manage 
and he detailed twenty-five picked men to shoot down 
any who refused to march. 

Surrender of Hamilton. The story of the final cap- 
ture of the fort and the unconditional surrender of Gen- 



WISCONSIN IN THE REVOLUTION 99 

eral Hamilton is a stirring chapter of history. Clark 
marched and countermarched his men about the fort 
until the British general thought many times two hun- 
dred soldiers were about to attack him. At night Clark 
attacked the fort. Under a flag of truce Hamilton asked 
for terms but after Clark had demanded unconditional 
surrender or "treatment as is justly due a murderer," he 
yielded the fort. With twenty-six of his followers he was 
sent as a prisoner of war to Virginia but eventually he 
was freed by Washington. Thus ended the old North- 
west. Without Clark's conquest the English might 
never have surrendered the territory now comprising 
the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and 
Ohio, for when the treaty of peace was being negotiated 
the American commissioners, Franklin, Jay and Adams, 
forced Great Britain to yield her claim to this region 
largely because of its military possession by American 
forces under Clark. 

American Influence in Wisconsin. Although Clark 
himself never came to Wisconsin, his agents were active 
among the Indians trying to overcome the influence of 
Langlade. Some tribes remained neutral. The Pottawa- 
tomies at Milwaukee allied themselves with the Ameri- 
cans, and at Prairie du Chien the leading French trader, 
Godfroy Linctot, took the American side. Thus there 
was considerable American influence in Wisconsin al- 
though the English fur trade continued in full strength. 
Many vessels were sent to the Great Lakes, and one at 
least kept up a trade along the Wisconsin shore of Lake 
Michigan. The Revolutionary War closed with the 
Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783, and the new nation 
was in legal, but not actual, possession of Wisconsin. 



100 OUR WISCONSIN 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What was the reason Great Britain desired to keep her 

colonies? 

2. Does she still hold to this theory? 

3. What colonies led in opposing George III? 

4. Did the Declaration of Independence refer to the Quebec 

Act? 

5. What was the decisive battle of the Revolution? Was it be- 

fore or after Clark's expedition? 

6. Why were the settlers of Wisconsin so late in learning of 

the Revolution? How long could they be in ignorance of 
such news now? What inventions have helped in the 
rapid spread of information? 

7. What was George Rogers Clark's great service to this coun- 

try? 

8. Read Maurice Thomson's Alice of Old Vmcennes; Chur- 

chill's The Crossing, or Eggleston's Long Knives. 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

Importance of Clark's Conquest. At the close of the 
Revoluiion the American commissioners who were mak- 
ing the treaty of peace with England had much difficulty 
in securing the Northwest Territory for the United 
States. We have seen that the conquest by George 
Rogers Clark was the basis of their claim to this territory. 

As soon as the treaty was signed, there came a scram- 
ble among the original colonies for possession of the new 
territory. Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and 
New York, because of provisions in their royal charters, 
claimed all or part of it. In the case of Virginia, the 
conquest of Clark was used as an argument to justify 
the claim. The other states contended that as the land 
had been acquired through the common sacrifice of all, 
the individual states should surrender their claims. This 
view prevailed, and the western lands were regarded as 
territory to be used for national purposes. Their in- 
terest in this great territorial possession was a tie which 
tended to bind the states more firmly into a single nation. 

Jay's Treaty of 1794. The seventh article of the 
Treaty of Paris promised that all armies, garrisons and 
fleets of Great Britain should be withdrawn from the 
United States with all convenient speed. In the spring of 
1784 Washington sent a representative to Quebec to 
make arrangements for the transfer of the western posts. 



102 OUR WISCONSIN 

The English declined to turn them over until the United 
States government compelled the return of the loyalist 
property taken by the states during the v^ar. 

Of course the real reason for the refusal v^as the Bri- 
tish desire to hold the fur trade which, under the control 
of two great trading companies, had reached enormous 
proportions. Through the fur trade the Indians were 
kept loyal to England. Had the posts been surrendered 
as had been agreed, the Indians would have traded 
through American channels, their interests would have 
been with America and the United States would have 
been spared many long and exhausting frontier wars. 
The Indians were taught to believe that England would 
finally recover the territory and that old conditions would 
be restored. Finally, by Jay's treaty of 1794, most of the 
points in dispute were settled but it was not until after 
the War of 1812 that America obtained complete posses- 
sion of the territory. 

Ordinance of 1787. In the meantime Congress was 
planning methods of governing the new territory. Sev- 
eral suggestions were made only to be rejected. A law 
known as The Ordinance of ijSj was at last agreed to 
and passed by Congress in July of that year. Next to the 
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, this is 
the most important document in the history of the United 
States. It contains the germs of much that is the purest 
and best in our national legislation. The most impor- 
tant features of this act was found in the constitution of 
our state. Many of them are new, and they showed 
that their authors had a vision that few statesmen pos- 
sess. Speaking of this ordinance much later, Daniel 
Webster said, *T doubt whether one single law of any 




Stand Rock, at Dalles of the Wisconsin 



104 OUR WISCONSIN 

law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of 
more distinct, marked and lasting character than the 
Ordinance of 1787." 

Some of the important provisions of this document 
are these : 

Public Schools. — "Schools and the means of education 
shall forever be encouraged." To carry out this provi- 
sion the sixteenth section of every township of land was 
given to the states for a common school fund. The sup- 
port of our system of common schools is based upon this 
grant. In addition each state was to receive not less than 
seventy-two square miles of land for the support of a 
university. The State University at Madison is partly a 
result of this ordinance. 

Freedom. — ''There shall be neither slavery nor in- 
voluntary servitude in said territory." Wisconsin was 
thus destined to be a free state. 

Union Forever. — ''The said territory and states which 
may be formed therein shall forever remain a part of this 
confederacy of the United States of America." 

It also provided that good faith should be observed 
toward the Indians, that freedom of religion should be 
allowed, that contracts should be held inviolable, and that 
the English common law should prevail. 

Basis of Government. This is the law which formed 
the basis of the government of the Northwest Territory, 
a territory destined to be the very heart of a great nation. 
It has served as a model for all American territorial 
government. Eventually the territory was carved into 
five states with a total area of 266,000 square miles. Of 
these states Wisconsin is one. 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 105 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why did the conquest of George Rogers Clark give Virginia 

a special claim to the Northwest Territory? 

2. Did England, in 1783, expect to give up the Mississippi Val- 

ley? 

3. Who were the loyalists? 

4. What are the principal provisions of the Ordinance of 1787? 

5. This ordinance has sometimes been called the Magna Charta 

of the Northwest. Why? 

6. What states were formed from this territory? 

7. How did the Northwest Territory prove a bond of union for 

the states? 

8. What is the origin of our common school fund? 



CHAPTER XVII 



WISCONSIN IN THE WAR OF 1812 

Great Britain was so slow in carrying out the terms of 
the treaty of peace of 1783 and Jay's treaty of 1795 that 
when the War of 1812 broke out, Wisconsin, although 
legally American territory, was still held by the British. 
Most of the Indians were English sympathizers, but the 
Menominees, under Chief Tomah, were neutral. The 
French residents had been made citizens of the United 
States by law, although they never became active in the 
service of this country. "They still clung to their Cana- 
dian connections and customs and, although they were 
now in the employ of English fur-traders, still kept Wis- 
consin as completely French as it had been at any time 
during the two centuries of French control. 

Tecumseh's Confederacy. In October, 1811, Te- 
cumseh and his brother, the Prophet, both Shawnees of 
great ability, formed a confederacy of the western In- 
dians to drive out the white settlers. It was said that 
British traders assisted them by supplying arms and am- 
munition. Just before the uprising, Tecumseh had come 
to Wisconsin to enlist the Indians of this state. The 
Menominees were invited to join but Chief Tomah's in- 
fluence was sufficient to prevent his tribe from becoming 
a part of the conspiracy. Other tribes from this state — 
the Chippewas, Pottawattomies, Sauks, Foxes and Win- 
nebagoes — did assist in the undertaking. At the battle 



WISCONSIN IN THE WAR OF 1812 107 

of Tippecanoe, fought November 7, 1811, in what is now 
Indiana, the Indians were decisively defeated by a force 
under General William Henry Harrison. 

Among the four causes which President Madison 
later gave as justification for war with England was the 
encouragement given the Indians by the British to mur- 
der and rob Americans in the western settlements. Just 
as the West had been a cause of the Revolution, so was it 
a cause of the War of 1812. 

Battle at Prairie du Chien. Wisconsin was so far 
away from the seat of war that she took but small part 
in the conflict. Almost all of the inhabitants were hope- 
ful of a British triumph as they believed that only 
through the EngHsh could there be a successful fur trade. 
One battle was fought in Wisconsin, at Prairie du Chien, 
but not until the last year of the war. 

The Americans saw that if they were to prevent En- 
glish raids down the Mississippi it was necessary to hold 
Prairie du Chien. General William Clark, a brother of 
George Rogers Clark, was governor of Missouri and 
military commander of the upper Mississippi Valley. He 
sent a force of three hundred men under Lieutenant 
James Perkins to build a fort at the mouth of the Wis- 
consin River to control the A¥isconsin-Fox route to the 
west. On a large Indian mound not far from the Mis- 
sissippi the Americans erected a stockade which was 
named Fort Shelby. It was placed in good condition for 
defense and the gunboat which had brought the force up 
the river was placed in midstream just in front of the 
fort, the mouths of its half dozen cannon being just 
visible from the shore. 

The people of the village were divided in interest, 
most of them appearing to be ^ro-British in sympathy. 



108 OUR WISCONSIN 

The arrival of the Americans surprised the inhabitants of 
Dog's Prairie as the British called the place. They had 
been told by the traders that the Americans would never 
venture that far up the river. One of them, Robert Dick- 
son, a red-haired Scot, fled to the English at Mackinac, 
who immediately prepared for eiifective measures. Dick-r 
son then went to Green Bay to collect a body of Winne- 
bagoes for the purpose of aiding in an attack on Fort 
Shelby. Dickson, who was known by the Indians as Red 
Head, had great influence with them and soon had col- 
lected a large force. From Mackinac a force under Major 
William McKay went by way of Green Bay and Lake 
Winnebago, and was joined at Portage by Dickson's 
five or six hundred Indians. 

On a pleasant Sunday morning at about ten o'clock, 
July 17, 1814, the red coats of the English regulars, the 
gaudy caps of the Canadians and the paint-bedaubed 
savages were seen from the fort. Within were sixty or 
seventy soldiers protected by the stockade and two block 
houses on which were mounted six cannons. In the river 
was the gunboat. Within half an hour Perkins was sum- 
moned to "surrender unconditionally or defend yourself 
to the last man." With American promptness he sent 
back this note : 

"Sir — I received your polite note and prefer the latter, and am determined 
to defend to the last man." 

This defiant answer was the signal for the beginning 
of the battle. The British gunners fired eighty-six shots 
in three hours, two-thirds of which hit the gunboat. The 
boat replied vigorously but the gunners were not so suc- 
cessful in securing hits and the vessel soon ran in behind 
an island and escaped down-stream. 



WISCONSIN IN THE WAR OF 1812 109 

McKay now devoted his attention to the fort. His 
Indians, however, had become unruly and were plunder- 
ing the village without regard to whether the inhabitants 
favored the British or the Americans. For two days the 
English gunner kept firing at the fort without doing 
much damage. On the evening of the nineteenth when 
McKay had been reduced to but six rounds for his can- 
non and was preparing to send the cannon-balls into the 
fort red-hot to set it on fire, he was surprised to see a 
white flag run up. The supply of food in the fort had be- 
come exhausted and Perkins had formed an exaggerated 
idea of the number of men in the British force. He sent 
out the following note: 

"Sir — I am willing to surrender the garrison provided you will save and 
protect the officers and men and prevent the Indians from ill treating them." 

McKay was willing to accept these terms of surren- 
der but he suggested that the Americans remain in their 
fort until morning. Despite the protests of the Indians, 
when the Americans marched out the following morning 
the humane Briton gave back to the Americans their 
arms and a supply of ammunition and permitted them to 
depart for St. Louis. In the struggle, five Americans on 
the gunboat lost their lives and ten were wounded. 
Within the fort, three soldiers were hit with bullets but 
none was killed. The British suffered no losses. 

McKay did not remain long at the fort. He renamed 
it Fort McKay In honor of himself, and then w^ent back 
to Mackinac leaving Captain Anderson in charge. Cap- 
tain Andrew H. Bulger of the regulars soon relieved him. 
He had a difficult time with the men in the fort, the In- 
dian allies and the French traders. Indian tribes came to 
hold councils and so obtained large amounts of British 



110 OUR WISCONSIN 

Stores. Bulger was at last obliged to put all of the coun- 
try in his jurisdiction under martial law. 

End of War. On the twenty-fourth of December, 

1814, a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the 
United States was signed at Ghent. The news did not 
reach Prairie du Chien until the twentieth day of May, 

1815. Fearing an Indian uprising, Bulger did not wait 
for an American force to take possession but sent a mes- 
senger to tell the American commander to help himself 
to everything in Fort McKay. On May the twenty- 
fourth, 1815, he took down the British flag, made what 
excuses he could to his Indian followers and hurried 
away to Mackinac where he turned over to the Ameri- 
can commander all the stores remaining in his pos- 
session. 

Thus ended the foreign rule of Wisconsin soil. For 
ninety years the French flag had waved undisputed ; for 
twenty-two years the English banner had flown legally, 
and for twenty-two more years had floated over terri- 
tory belonging to the United States. Thereafter Wis- 
consin was American both in name and in fact. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why did the Indians and French sympathize with England? 

2. What were the causes of the War of 1812? 

3. What do you think of McKay's treatment of the American 

garrison? 

4. Why did Perkins surrender Fort Shelby? 

5. Compare Tecumseh with Pontiac. 

6. What industry practically determined the first one hundred 

and eighty years of Wisconsin history? 

7. Why was the news of the treaty so long in reaching Wis- 

consin? 



CHAPTER XVIII 



LIFE IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS 

First Five Settlements. Before 1800 there were not 
to exceed two hundred white persons in all Wisconsin. 
Population did not increase very rapidly as long as the 
fur-trade was the dominant interest, but with the open- 
ing* of the lead mines, ten or fifteen years after the close 
of the War of 1812, the growth was more rapid. It is 
difficult to determine what were the exact dates of the 
first permanent settlement or who were the first settlers. 
It is reasonably certain, however, that the first five settle- 
ments were at Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, Milwaukee, 
Portage and Kaukauna.'^ 

Green Bay in 1816. Although the English and Ameri- 
can flags successively floated over them, these towns were 
French in origin and for a long time remained French 
both in control and manner of life. Green Bay was the 
largest and one of the most picturesque of these early 
settlements. By 1816, it had grown to be an attractive 
village of about forty-five families mostly of French 
origin. They were easy going at the best, not over thrifty 
nor over industrious. They cared not at all who was 
their political master, the King of France, the King of 

*The following are usually assigned as the first settlers: 
Green Bay — Augustin and Charles Langlade, ''764; Prairie du Chien — Bazil 
Girard, Augustin Ange and Pierre Antaya, 17S1; Milwaukee — Jacques Vieau, 
1795; Laurent Barth, 1793; Kaukauna — Dominick Ducharme, 1790. 



112 OUR WISCONSIN 

England or the people of the United States. They still 
preserved their primitive community life and their 
primitive form of government. They apparently believed 
that the community least governed is best governed. The 
habitant, as the French settler was called, was a lover of 
amusement; and as long as he had enough to meet his 
simple physical wants, did no more work than absolutely 
necessary. In these respects, he was the opposite of the 
Anglo-Saxon pioneer who soon took his place. 

Manner of Living. Because of their desire to be near 
each other and to protect themselves from the Indians 
the first settlers built their cabins close together along 
rivers. When the American came among them and 
noticed that the houses, in this particular, resembled 
those of the beaver and muskrat, he called the settlers 
muskrat Frenchmen. Despite the lack of conveniences 
these people lived contentedly. The winter was a season 
of gaiety and merry-making. There were parties and 
dances, races on the ice and other amusements. The 
blanketed Indian was ever present. Dancing began 
early. A party always closed with a feast. 

Agriculture was carried on in the most primitive 
manner. Except the share, the old French plow was 
made of wood. Harness was made of twisted rawhide. 
In place of the familiar yoke used by the Yankees, a rope 
was attached to the horns of the oxen. In most of the 
settlements the land was not divided but there was a com- 
mon field used by all for the benefit of all. Often the en- 
closure consisted of several hundred acres with plots 
assigned to families in proportion to the number of chil- 
dren. If a plot was neglected it was forfeited. All was 
done in accordance with rules ; individual responsibility, 



LIFE IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS 113 

therefore, was not great. The fur trade still furnished 
the principal means of livelihood. 

Government. Until 1821, justice v^as usually ad- 
ministered under the old French code of law, but when 
necessary martial law was proclaimed. Court procedure 
in the two leading" towns, Green Bay and Prairie du 
Chien, was usually carried on without judge or jury. 
About 1803, a pompous old gentleman, who had drifted 
into Green Bay, was appointed justice of the peace. 
Portly, bald-headed and self-important, this little French- 
man, Charles Reaume, the only civil officer in Wisconsin, 
governed the community until well after the War of 
1812. His rules were respected as though they were 
decisions of a supreme court. He drew up all manner of 
legal documents and commercial papers ; baptized and 
married the inhabitants and was the general notary and 
scribe for the entire country west of Lake Michigan. He 
may have had some little legal education but his decisions 
were usually based on the right as he saw it without re- 
gard to technicalities of the law. He seems to have taken 
good care of himself as the following incident will show. 

Two Frenchmen, who had had a quarrel about an in- 
significant matter, came to the judge with their griev- 
ances. He heard what each had to say and then, with 
the dignity due the occasion, rendered his decision. 

"You are both wrong," he said. ''You," pointing his 
finger at the plaintifif, "you will bring me one load of hay ; 
and you," he said to the defendant, "you will bring me 
one load of wood. The case is settled." 

The judge had a great love of display. He had a 
judge's robe of scarlet cloth, faced with white and deco- 
rated with spangled buttons, which he wore upon all 



114 OUR WISCONSIN 

public occasions. When he wanted a person to appear in 
court he sent a constable bearing the judge's well-known 
jackknife to bring the man to court. The knife was as 
effective as a warrant. 

At Prairie du Chien, John Campbell, an Irishman, 
exercised his power much as did Reaume at Green Bay. 
Such administration shows the fundamental good nature 
of the community and their simple and primitive methods 
of getting on with each other. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Name and locate the earliest settlements in Wisconsin. 

2. Describe the village of Green Bay as it was in 1816. 

3. Why were agricultural methods so primitive? 

4. What do you think of common ownership of the land? 

5. Describe a court scene, as you imagine it, with Judge Reaume 

presiding. 

6. What advantages had this primitive life over our more highly 

organized communities? What disadvantages? 

7. Read in Evangeline the description of the life of Grand Pre. 

Does it resemble early Wisconsin life in the villages? 



CHAPTER XIX 
FROM FUR TRADING TO LEAD MINING 

John Jacob Astor. The fur trade continued to be the 
principal commercial interest of Wisconsin until about 
1834. Close upon the heels of the American soldiers who 
occupied the Wisconsin forts after the War of 1812, came 
the shrewd Yankee traders. They-found it very difficult 
to compete with the British agents. Consequently, 
through the influence of John Jacob Astor, they induced 
Congress to exclude foreigners from the fur trade. Astor 
had previously tried to gain a foothold in the fur country 
but British influences were too strong. Now his Ameri- 
can Fur Company established headquarters at Mackinaw 
where furs were received from Green Bay and Prairie du 
Chien and packed for New York. 

Undoing of the Indian. With all his ability, Astor 
found many serious difficulties ahead of him. The Bri- 
tish traders were unwilling to give up the rich fur coun- 
try and evaded the law by having licenses taken out by 
their American clerks. The Indian, too, had come to be 
dependent upon goods he received in exchange for his 
furs. He had lost the art of making clothing out of skins 
and kettles from clay. He had learned that hunting 
brought him much more than anything else he could do. 
The credit system was employed and the Indian was per- 
mitted to buy his summer goods on the prospect of the 
next winter's hunt. For this reason he was always 
heavily in debt, a fact which made him loyal to the nation 



116 OUR WISCONSIN 

extending this credit. These conditions and the introduc- 
tion of intoxicating liquors by the whites were the prin- 
cipal reasons for the undoing of the Indian. 

Aster's Monopoly. Coarse cloth, blankets, cheap 
jewelry, bells, mirrors, combs, hatchets, scalping knives, 
scissors, kettles, hoes, fire-arms, fire-water, gunpowder, 
tobacco and almost anything else that the Indian might 
desire were used for barter."^ As much as $75,000 worth 
of goods were brought into Wisconsin in one year. Be- 
cause_Astor's American Fur Company was unable to 
supply goods as cheaply or of as good quality as could the 
BritisFTrad'ers, the Indians were apt to hold American 
products in contempt. Astor finally resorted to methods 
that have since been used by men who desired to estab- 
lish monopolies. If some venturesome trader attempted 
to do business, the company at once established a post 
near him, sold goods at half their value and finally drove 
the trader from the field. The Astor company would 
then raise prices as they possessed a monopoly in the 
territory in which they operated. In this way the 
agents of the American Fur Company were able prac- 
tically to control the trade in furs between Lake Michigan 
and the Mississippi River. 

The influence of the fur-trade has been well described 
by Professor Turner as "closing its mission by becoming 
the pathfinder for agricultural and manufacturing civili- 
zation." The Indian village became the trading-post and 

*It may be of interest to know that the price of labor was low and the 
cost of commodities high. A boatman received $83.33 a year in money and 
had an equipment of two cotton shirts, one blanket and a pair of shoes. Im- 
ported commodities were priced in accordance with the price of exchanged 
products. If flour was $8 per hundred pounds, tea was $8 per pound. If 
flour fell to $6 a hundred, tea fell to $6 a pound. Onions brought $9 per 
bushel; eggs, $1 per dozen; soap, $1 per pound; calico, $2 per yard; tobacco, 
$2 per pound; clay pipes, forty cents apiece. 



FROM FUR TRADING TO LEAD MINING 117 

the traaing post became the city. The trails became our 
early roads and marked the way for the railway. With 
the development of lead mining in southwestern Wis- 
consin, a new industry was developed and the fur trade 
declined to a relatively unimportant place, although for 
two centuries after the coming of Nicolet in 1634, it was 
the chief source of wealth. 

Discovery of Lead. It was about 1822 that the so- 
called discovery of the lead mines of southwestern Wis- 
consin occurred. In that year a Kentuckian, Colonel 
James Johnson, negotiated a lease of a part of the land 
where the city of Galena, Illinois, is now located. He 
began mining operations on a large scale. For several 
years previous to this, Indians and Frenchmen had done 
some mining. In 1810, a letter to the Secretary of War 
stated that the Indians at Prairie du Chien had exchanged 
for goods during that season about 400,000 pounds of lead. 
Six years later a number of crude smelting places had 
been set up both in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1819 the 
United States purchased from the Indians their claims 
to the mining country. American prospectors immedi- 
ately began work, one of the earliest being James W. 
Shull, founder of Shullsburg in LaFayette county. 

Glowing notices of Johnson's success appeared in the 
St. Louis newspapers in the winter of 1822. Soon a 
horde of squatters and prospectors from Missouri, Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee poured into the new Eldorado. As 
the Indians would not let the white men enter the dis- 
trict, the government sent troops from the forts at Prairie 
du Chien and Rock Island to overawe them. Finding 
that resistance would be useless, the Indians quietly sub- 
mitted to the invasion of their mineral territorv and sul- 



118 OUR V/I SCON SIN 

lenly waited for a time for revenge. The hillsides of 
southwestern Wisconsin were soon being overturned by 
prospectors in search of lead ore. Thus began what at 
one time was a leading industry of Wisconsin, an indus- 
try which for several years held the position of import- 
ance formerly occupied by the fur trade. 

Despite muttered threats from the Indians the popula- 
tion rapidly increased. In 1825 it was estimated that 
there were two hundred persons in the district; three 
years later there were fully ten thousand. Galena had 
become the center of the mining region, and promised to 
become the metropolis of the west. In three years the 
lead output increased from 439,473 pounds to 12,957,100 
pounds. Negro slaves were brought from the south by 
their masters to work in the mines and quantities of lead 
were sent down the Mississippi in flat boats. 

Influx of Prospectors. The boat loads of ore, the 
stories of ricli ore deposits and the ease with which min- 
ing was supposed to be done, caused a rush of speculators 
and prospectors into the territory, much like that which 
afterward followed the discoveries of gold in California, 
the Black Hills and Alaska. Old Indian trails were con- 
verted into highways for coaches and lumber wagons. 
Men came on foot^ on horseback and by team from all 
sections of the country. Others came up the Mississippi 
on boats and even Cornish miners from England began 
to arrive. Men worth thousands traveled with vaga- 
bonds ; everybody was welcome and everybody expected 
soon to be rich. Mushroom towns sprang up everywhere, 
all hoping to become great commercial centers. Some of 
the miners gained what in those days were considered 
vast fortunes. One man at Hazel Green in one day took 



FROM FUR TRADING TO LEAD MINING 



119 



seventeen thousand pounds of mineral from his claim. 
He operated the claim until he had taken out a hundred 
thousand pounds and then abandoned it. Another pros- 
pector immediately took possession and mined a hundred 
and fifty thousand pounds more. As the ore was worth 
about eighty dollars a ton, one may easily see that wealth 
was in prospect for everybody. As is usual in newly 
developed mining sections, however, some of the adven- 
turers were doomed to disappointment. 

Methods of Smelting. Most of the miners followed 
the Indian plan of smelting the ore in a log furnace. This 
was a crude and inefficient device. In place of using gun- 
powder for blasting, many followed an old method of the 
Indians. They got dry wood and built a fire on the rock 
they desired to break. After getting the rock hot they 
poured cold water on it, causing it to crack so that it 
co^d be pried up. Better means were soon devised, how- 
evW, and mines that had been abandoned were opened 
and fouMd to be exceptionally rich. 

Ore Routes. Most of the lead that was smelted went 
to Galena and from there to St. Louis or New Orleans. 
Long caravans of ore wagons, some of them drawn by 
as many as eight yoke of oxen, wore deep ruts in the 
primitive road that reached, by way of Mineral Point and 
Belmont, this metropolis of the mining country. An- 
other road went through Madison to Milwaukee, a dis- 
tance of about a hundred and fifty miles. Some of the 
lead was sent to Helena, a little village on the Wisconsin 
River not far from the present village of Spring Green, 
where a shot tower had been built on a high cliff. From 
there, boats carried the shot up the old Wisconsin-Fox 
route to Green Bay or down the river to Prairie du Chien. 



120 OUR WISCONSIN 

From Mining to Agriculture. The lead industry 
flourished in Wisconsin until the discovery of gold in 
CaHfornia, copper in the Lake Superior country and 
silver in the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills seemed to 
offer miners greater opportunities. Other causes for the 
decline of lead mining were the tariff of 1846, which re- 
sulted in a lower price for the ore; the exhaustion of the 
surface mines together with the difficulty of working 
them at a lower level ; and the poor facilities for trans- 
poiting the ore. By 1847 the region had reached the 
height of its development and was producing 15,000 tons 
annually ; by 1857 it had ceased to be an important indus- 
try. Many of the men who had been mining turned their 
attention to agriculture as the fertile soil made this a 
more profitable occupation. From 1850 until about 1900 
lead mining was for the most part carried on as a winter 
occupation of the farmers. At present from 3,000 to 
4,500 tons are produced each year. ^ 

Results of Lead Industry. The development of the 
lead industry brought into the state many men who were 
notable in its territorial history. Among them were 
Henry Dodge, afterwards governor, who brought with 
him from Missouri a number of negro slaves ; Henry 
Gratiot; and Colonel AVilliam S. Hamilton, a son of 
Washington's great Secretary of the Treasury. Many 
years before farmers would naturally have moved to this 
section, the opening of the mines brought a large and 
energetic population and considerable capital. The 
necessity for better transportation* led to demands for 

* By way of New Orleans it costs $30 a ton to send ore to New York. To 
get it to Milwaukee for shipment on the Great Lakes cost $10 a ton. It cost 
$8 more to get it to New York by way of the Erie Canal. Iron ore can now 
be sent from Superior or Duluth for less than a dollar a ton. 



FROM FUR TRADING TO LEAD MINING 121 

improvements on the Mississippi River, plans for canals 
and a project for the construction of a railroad from the 
Mississippi to Lake Michigan. 

While the fur trade had been responsible for the dis- 
covery and exploration of Wisconsin, it had done little 
for its development. The lead industry was responsible 
for a rapid growth in population, the organization of a 
state government, the agitation for state canals and the 
building of the first east and west railroads through this 
region. It is held by some writers that these railroads 
were the means of saving the northern part of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley to the Union during the period of the Civil 
War. If this is true, then the lead mines helped make 
the nation "one and indivisible." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What caused the decline of the fur trade? 

2. How did this decline affect the Indians? 

3. What is a monopoly? How did John Jacob Astor establish 

his? 

4. What was the principal influence of the fur trade? 

5. Why would the discovery of lead cause a rush to Wis- 

consin? 

6. What are squatters? What is meant by Eldorado? 

7. How was the lead transported to New York? 

8. What cau;.ed the decHne of the lead industry? 

9. What w^ere the effects of the lead industry on the history 

of Wisconsin? 

10. Recall the provisions of the Ordinance of 178/ and explain 

the use of slaves in the mining days. 

11. Your United States history discusses internal improve- 

ments. Read the accounts of the political agitation grow- 
ing out of them. Would the lead miners favor them? 
Why? 

12. Explain the last sentence of this chapter. 



CHAPTER XX 



RED BIRD AND BLACK HAWK 

Since the beginning of American rule in Wisconsin 
there has been but one Indian war of any magnitude and 
this was fought on Wisconsin soil simply because Black 
Hawk and his Sauk followers fled here from Illinois when 
they were pursued by the regulars and militia. Five 
years before the Black Hawk War, however, an Indian 
uprising led by Red Bird, a Winnebago, threatened to 
cause serious trouble. 

A grand council of the Indians had met at Prairie du 
Chien in the summer of 1825 to settle some boundary 
disputes. They concluded their meeting on August 18 
with a treaty which bound them to perpetual peace. The 
American government had two representatives at the 
council, Lewis Cass, governor of the Michigan territory 
of which Wisconsin had been made a part, and General 
Clark of Missouri. Because they did not distribute 
presents with the liberality of the British and French, 
they made a bad impression on the Indians who called 
them "sting>^ old women." The Indians were also dis- 
satisfied because they were not nermitted to have a feast 
at the conclusion oi the peace conierence and went home 
with their natural dislike of the Americans greatly in- 
tensified. 

Reasons for Dislike. The following winter passed 
with none of the Indians paying any attention to the 



RED BIRD AND BLACK HAWK U3 

terms of the treaty. It is doubtful if they even under- 
stood them. At any rate, the Indians did not feel bound 
by the pledged word of their chiefs, for, in a large meas- 
ure, each individual of the tribe was a law unto himself. 
The Winnebagoes, in particular, seemed to be thinking 
of causing trouble because two of their braves had been 
imprisoned at Prairie du Chien for thieving. They had 
about concluded to go on the warpath when an unfor- 
tunate order from Washington directed the removal of 
the troops from Fort Crawford to Fort Snelling at St. 
Paul. The Winnebagoes supposed the departure of the 
troops was the result of fear. As a consequence the 
young braves were in a frenzy to attack the whites. In 
the spring of 1827 some Winnebagoes massacred the 
members of the Methode family while they were making 
maple sugar about twelve miles north of Prairie du Chien, 
This caused great excitement among both the whites and 
the Indians. Red Bird, a petty Winnebago chief who 
had his camp on the Black River near the present village 
of Trempleau, heard from some wily Sioux that two of 
his men who had been imprisoned at Fort Crawford had 
been hanged when the troops reached Fort Snelling. 
Eager for revenge, he set out to take four white scalps 
as the Indian code required that two enemy scalps be 
taken for each one taken from his own people. 

Vengeance. Red Bird had other motives prompting 
him to attempt vengeance. The American agent at 
Prairie du Chien had been unwise, the French and British 
fur traders were making liberal promises to Red Bird, 
the Winnebagoes had been brutally driven from the lead 
mines, the Sioux were encouraging them to revolt, and 
the white men appeared to be frightened. At last, Red 



124 OUR WISCONSIN 

Bird acted. A particularly treacherous murder of an=- 
other Prairie du Chien family named Grainger by Red 
Bird and three companions resulted in his obtaining 
three of the four scalps he had set owl to take. 

The murderers escaped and fled northward about 
forty miles to the Winnebago camp at Bad Axe. There 
they celebrated the deed with a drunken debauch that 
lasted several days. During the afternoon of the third 
day two boats appeared on the Mississippi River in front 
of the camp. The Indians attacked^ but after a fierce en- 
gagement the boats escaped. Nearly seven hundred bul- 
lets had pierced the first boat which had been run on a 
sandbar. Two of the crew were killed outright and two 
were mortally wounded. Seven savages were killed and 
fourteen wounded. 

When news of these events spread throughout the 
state, a frontier war was expected. Men from the lead 
mine country came to Fort Crawford to volunteer for a 
war against the Indians. A battalion of troops came 
down from Fort Snelling and a regiment under command 
of General Henry Atkinson came from St. Louis. A 
volunteer company proceeded up the Wisconsin-Fox 
route to Butte des Mortes where a council was held with 
the Winnebagoes. The whites demanded that Red Bird 
and his companion, Wekau, be surrendered. It was also 
made clear that failure to comply with this demand 
would mean that the entire tribe would be hunted like 
wild animals. Indian runners were sent out to notify 
the tribes. Finally, Red Bird agreed to give himself up in 
order that the tribe might be saved. 

Red Bird's Surrender. At Portage, a tall, manly, 
graceful fellow dressed in the picturesque regalia of a 



RED BIRD AND BLACK HAWK 125 

Winnebago chief surrendered in a most dignified way. 
The Red Bird who thus gave himself up did not seem at 
all like the murderer who was being sought. He was 
therefore, relieved of wearing irons but was sent to Fort 
Crawford to await trial. He had many opportunities to 
escape but he had given his word to remain and stand 
trial, and he kept his promise. He died in prison before 
his sentence could be carried out. Red Bird felt that he 
had done nothing dishonorable. He should not be judged 
too harshly for he was true to the Indian code of morals 
which was different from that of the white man. 

The next year, 1829, Fort Winnebago was built at 
Portage, the scene of Red Bird's surrender. This was an 
important event, for Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien, 
Fort Howard at Green Bay and Fort Winnebago gave 
the United States, for the first time, a firm control over 
what is now Wisconsin. Red Bird's uprising had no 
serious results such as might have followed if prompt 
and effective measures had not been taken to suppress it. 

Sauk Uprising. In 1832, a Sauk uprising under Black 
Hawk became a war in every sense of the word. In the 
interval following the Winnebago outbreak, there had 
been four years of peace and prosperity. The population 
of the lead region had been increased by the return of 
those who had left when they heard of the murders com- 
mitted by Red Bird, and by the arrival of many immi- 
grants who came with them. Their occupation of this 
region which the Sauks and Foxes regarded as their 
hunting grounds, was the principal cause of the Black 
Hawk War. 

But for the cowardice of the volunteers this uprising, 
too, might have been surpressed without serious con- 



126 OUR WISCONSIN 

sequences. As it was. Black Hawk's band was finally 
annihilated although at the cost of the lives of three 
hundred frontiersmen and of many women and children 
who lived on the exposed fringes of the settlements. 

Reasons for Uprising. Long before the war began, 
trouble had been brewing between the Sauks and the 
white settlers in the Sauk territory. By the terms of a 
treaty made in November, 1804, the chiefs of the Foxes 
and Sauks had ceded to the United States fifty million 
acres of land in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. 
In return for this they were to receive each year a thou- 
sand dollars and were to be permitted to enjoy the 
privilege of living and hunting on this land until it should 
be sold to settlers. In accordance with this agreement 
the Sauks under Black Hawk occupied a fertile tract 
three miles from the mouth of the Rock River. There 
they cleared and farmed a tract of eight hundred acres 
and established one of the largest Indian villages on the 
continent. There was excellent pasture for horses, fish 
abounded in the river, the soil was productive and spring 
water was abundant. It was an ideal location and for 
almost a century the Sauks had made this spot their 
home. The graves of their fathers were there, a fact 
which made the soil doubly sacred to them. Restless 
frontiersmen, however, without the shadow of right be- 
gan to fence in the cornfields and take possession of the 
lodges of the Indians. Upon returning from a hunt Black 
Hawk found a white man's family comfortably occupying 
his own wigwam. Many of the Indians moved across the 
river Into Iowa, but the British Band under Black Hawk 
— so called because two hundred of them had fought un- 
der Tecumseh — continued to hold the village site against 
the onrushing tide of settlement. 



RED BIRD AND BLACK HAWK . 127 

Signing of Treaty. In the spring of 1831 when Black 
Hawk sought to return to his own village after a gloomy 
winter of fruitless hunting, he was warned away by the 
whites of the neighborhood who were more numerous 
than ever. He refused and notified the settlers that 
unless they left he should use force to compel them to do 
so. The settlers appealed to the governor of Illinois, 
complaining that they were in danger of massacre. A 
force of sixteen hundred volunteers was sent to protect 
them. These troops, together with ten companies of 
regulars, made a demonstration against Black Hawk's 
village. The Indians withdrew and, a little later, signed 
a treaty, agreeing never to return to the east side of the 
Mississippi River without the express permission of the 
United States government. 

Second Attempt. Black Hawk was then fifty-four 
years old. He was restless, ambitious, of a confiding 
disposition and possessed of considerable ability as a 
leader. He was honest but readily duped by those who 
w^ere interested in deceiving him. The young hot-heads 
among his own and other tribes and a Winnebago medi- 
cine-man named White Cloud urged him to attack the 
settlers to recover the lands which, they urged, were 
rightfully theirs and which held the bones of their fore- 
fathers. Misled by these influences and by the promises 
of aid from other tribes, Black Hawk, on April 6, 1832, 
crossed the river with five hundred warriors and accom- 
panied by all their women, children and belongings. 
They planned to raise a crop of corn that summer and, 
the following winter, to go on the warpath. This action, 
in view of the treaty, clearly would constitute an invasion 
and, therefore, an act of war. 



128 OUR WISCONSIN 

Famous Men in War. The Wisconsin and Illinois 
settlements were soon in the midst of feverish prepara- 
tions for war. The militia was called out and an army 
raised and placed under the command of General Atkin- 
son. In this expedition were many men who afterward 
became famous. Abraham Lincoln, who was in com- 
mand of a company of Illinois rangers; Zachary Taylor, 
a colonel of regulars ; Jefferson Davis, one of his lieu- 
tenants, and Robert Anderson, hero of Fort Sumter were 
among the three hundred regulars and eighteen hundred 
volunteers who made up the army. Black Hawk was sur- 
prised and, sending a defiant message to General Atkin- 
son, retreated up the Rock River to Stillman's Creek. 
There, finding that he was not to be assisted by other 
tribes, he determined to offer to withdraw peaceably to 
the west of the Mississippi. He sent messengers with a 
white flag but as they approached the camp they were 
brutally slain. The enraged Black Hawk then set upon 
the militia companies and, with a mere handful of braves, 
routed them. But for the cowardice and treachery of 
the militia, the Black Hawk War need never have been 
as bloody as it was. 

Black Hawk was much encouraged by his first vic- 
tory in which he had captured a large amount of spoils. 
Sending his women and children to the headwaters of 
the Rock River, he began, a series of attacks along the 
Illinois and Wisconsin border. Many skirmishes were 
fought with the settlers. In these attacks at least two 
hundred whites and an equal number of Indians lost their 
lives. Within three weeks after the Stillman Creek bat- 
tle, there were four thousand men in the field against 
Black Hawk. One group of two hundred mounted 
rangers from the lead region was led by Henry Dodge. 



RED BIRD AND BLACK HAWK 129 

Attempts at Surrender. As this new army moved 
toward him, Black Hawk retired to the headwaters of 
the Rock River. From there, with his women, children 
and the complete equipment of the village, he retreated 
to the Wisconsin River near the present village of 
Prairie du Sac. At this point he sought to surrender but 
his messenger was misunderstood. A battle ensued 
without advantage to either side. Black Hawk then sent 
the women and children down the Wisconsin on rafts. 
He and his warriors were soon driven to the Mississippi 
In the early days of August they attempted to cross just 
below the mouth of the Bad Axe in an effort to reach the 
west bank of the Mississippi where he hoped his people 
would be left in peace. At this juncture a government 
supply steamer, the Warrior, appeared on the scene and 
for the third time Black Hawk attempted to surrender 
but his white flag was deliberately fired upon. By this' 
time the pursuing troops had arrived and the helpless 
Indians were caught between two fires. Death either 
by drowning or by bullets seemed to face them all. When 
the battle was over, there remained of Black Hawk's 
people less than a hundred and fifty of the thousand In- 
dians who had crossed the river in April. Black Hawk 
fled to the regions of the Wisconsin River Dells to seek a" 
refuge among the Winnebagoes. They proved treach- 
erous and took Black Hawk as a prisoner to Prairie du 
Chien. 

Interview with Jackson. Black Hawk was removed 
to Jefferson Barracks and, later, was taken on a tour 
of the east to impress him with the greatness of the coun- 
!S/"t!^ *^^ uselessness of Indian resistance. In April 
1833, he had an interview with President Jackson who 



130 OUR WISCONSIN 

told him with characteristic emphasis that the United 
States would compel obedience from the red men. On 
the fourth of June he was set free by the President and 
sent for safe keeping to his hated rival, the Fox chief, 
Keokuk. In 1834 he published his autobiography, a most 
interesting document. He died in 1838; but even then 
he was not allowed to rest, for his bones were dug up and 
for two years were exhibited about the country by a 
patent medicine company. Eventually they were re- 
turned to the State of Iowa where, in 1853, the capitol 
building in which reposed the box that held his skeleton 
was destroyed by fire. 

The treatment of Black Hawk both before and during 
this war is not creditable to this country. He was patri- 
otic, romantic in temperament and, in fact, one of the 
finest specimens of the Indian race. He justified himself 
a year before his death in a speech to a group of white 
people. With the simplicity of the truly great he said, 
"Rock River was a beautiful country. I liked my town, 
my cornfields and the home of my people. I fought for 
them." 

The principal efifect of the war was to call attention to 
the natural resources and great opportunities of the Wis- 
consin country. The troops were not soldiers alone, but 
explorers, adventurers, and enthusiasts. The newspaper 
correspondents who went with the army sent back glow- 
ing accounts of the beautiful valleys, hills, and prairies 
here in the heart of the west. A strong westward move- 
ment had already set in, and these accounts served to 
direct immigration to northern Illinois and Wisconsin. 

At last the spirit of the Winnebago had been humbled 
and he never again took the warpath. The decisive fail- 



RED BIRD AND BLACK HAWK 131 

ures of Red Bird and Black Hawk demonstrated the 
futility of Indian attacks upon the white man's rule. 
Wisconsin never had another serious Indian scare, al- 
though in 1862 there was a flurry of excitement over the 
Sioux troubles in Minnesota. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why did the Indians dislike the Americans? 

2. What authority had an Indian chief over the members of 

his tribe? 

3. Can you justify Red Bird by Indian morals? Christian 

morals? 

4. What do you admire in Red Bird? 

5. What was the result of Red Bird's uprising on the control 

of Wisconsin? 

6. Do you blame the Sauk Indians for wanting to retain pos- 

session of their village? 

7. Were they treated fairly? Why was the flag of truce not 

respected? 

8. What subsequently fam.ous men took part in the Black 

Hawk war? What do you know about them? 

9. What do you think of Black Hawk? 

10. What were the results of the Black Hawk War? 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE TERRITORY OF WISCONSIN 

Soon after the Black Hawk War immigrants began 
pouring into the Wisconsin region. As was pointed out 
in the preceding chapter, that struggle had advertised its 
fertile prairies and valleys in the East. Men looking for 
new homes eagerly purchased the thousands of guide 
books and pamphlets printed by enterprising publishers. 
Many of the soldiers were sons of farmers who, as they 
crossed the state in pursuit of Black Hawk and his band, 
noted the agricultural possibilities of its fertile valleys 
and ridges. 

Boundaries. By 1836 Wisconsin had been suc- 
cessively a part of four territories. From 1787 to 1800 
it was a part of the Northwest Territory; from 1800 to 
1809, of Indiana Territory; from 1809 to 1818, of Illinois 
Territory; and from 1818 to 1836, of Michigan Territory. 
The settlers, coming as they did in such numbers after 
the Black Hawk War, made the need of a separate ter- 
ritorial government imperative. It was almost six hun- 
dred miles to Detroit, the capital of Michigan, and the 
means of communication were so primitive that the set- 
tlers felt it to be as far away as a foreign capital. As 
early as 1824 Judge James Doty had made an efifort to 
have a separate territory organized. He proposed to call 
the new territory Chippewa, and he included within its 
boundaries the northern peninsula of Michigan and a 



THE TERRITORY OF WISCONSIN 133 

larg-e section of the present states of ]\Iinnesota and 
Illinois. 

Origin of Name, and Meaning. Despite the earnest 
appeal of Judge Doty it was twelve years before the en- 
abling act passed Congress. During this period of agita- 
tion various names were proposed for the new territory, 
among them Huron, Chippezva and Wiskonsan. A modi- 
fication of the French Ouisconsin, an Indian name which 
has been variously interpreted, was finally decided upon 
by the legislature of 1845. The official spelling was 
made JVisconsin. 

First Governor. It Is quite probable that Wisconsin 
Territory would not have b'een organized, at that time, 
but for the fact that Arkansas was admitted as a state in 
that year and Congress, in order to offset the admission 
of a slave state, admitted Michigan as a free state. This 
left all of the territory v/est of Lake Michigan without a 
territorial government. The act creating the Territory 
of Wisconsin was passed April 20, 1836, to take effect 
July 3 of the same year. Andrew Jackson, who was then 
serving his last year as President, appointed Henry 
Dodge, a Democrat to be the first governor. Its boun- 
daries on the north and south were fixed as they are 
today. On the west, the boundary was extended to in- 
clude all the lands lying north of the state of Missouri 
and between the Mississippi on the east and the Missouri 
and White Earth Rivers on the west. Two years later 
Iowa was cut off and, eventually, the boundaries were 
fixed as at present. It may be that the state has been 
"despoiled" by these changes in its boundaries, but it is 
still as large as most of the other western states ; and its 
wealth of natural resources has shown the wisdom and 



134 OUR WISCONSIN 

fairness of the men who determined upon the present 
limits of the state. 

Population. The law creating Wisconsin Territory 
appropriated twenty thousand dollars from the Federal 
Treasury to aid in erecting public buildings at the first 
capital and five thousand dollars for a territorial library. 
The laws of Michigan were to remain in force until the 
first legislature could meet, at such place as the governor 
might appoint, when a capital was to be located and laws 
enacted. The census taken before the election of mem- 
bers of the legislature showed the population to be 
22,218. 

Location of Capitol. The first session of the legisla- 
ture convened on October 25, 1836, in a story-and-a-half 
frame building in a village, in the heart of the lead-mine 
district, newly laid out and called Belmont. The legisla- 
ture consisted of a council of thirteen members and a 
house of representatives of twice that number. There 
was great interest in this first meeting as many matters of 
importance were to come before it. From every section 
came land boomers to offer attractive sites for the future 
capital. Every village in the territory and many that 
yet had existence only in the minds of promoters, entered 
the contest. The places whose claims were most vigor- 
ously pushed were Madison, Belmont, Fond du Lac and 
Cassville. The influence of Judge Doty was finally suffi- 
cient to locate the seat of government at Madison, then a 
forest between Lakes Mendota and Monona. Madison, 
which had been named in honor of the fourth President 
of the United States, was a compromise between the 
conflicting interests of the Green Bay and the mining 
counties. The village was laid out in the winter of 1836- 



THE TERRITORY OF IVISCONSIN 135 

37, but it was not until November, 1838, that the legisla- 
ture met there. In the interval, the sessions of the 
legislature v^ere held at Burlington, which is now in the 
state of Iowa. 

During the twelve years of Wisconsin's existence as a 
territory, Henry Dodge, James Doty and Nathaniel 
Tallmadge held the office of governor. Much was done to 
develop the state. Newspapers were established, banks 
organized, a railroad chartered and the usual political 
fights engaged in. By 1847 the population had grown to 
210,456, a tremendous increase since the census of 1836. 

Early Settlement. Churches and schools were or- 
ganized with the first inrush of settlers. The early min- 
isters were ill provided for and were often subject to 
genuine hardships. The first Protestant sermon was 
preached in 1820 at Green Bay by Rev. Jediah Morse, a 
Presbyterian minister, who was the father of S. F. B. 
Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Congregational- 
ists, Methodists and Baptists soon followed. A Mormon 
colony at Burlington in Racine county under the 
leadership of James Jesse Strang, created much excite- 
ment in the days just preceding the organization of Wis- 
consin as a state. Strang claimed to be divinely inspired. 
In the community of two or three thousand persons 
which he established and named Vorhee, he was obeyed 
as a dictator. He pretended to discover brass tablets on 
which were revelations from God. He began a great 
temple in which the tablets were to be deposited and 
which should serve as a center for his religious activities. 
Ambitious to be king as well as prophet, he later formed 
a branch colony on an island in Lake Michigan. The 



136 OUR WISCONSIN 

fishermen there made life a burden for the colonists, and a 
border war with some bloodshed resulted. Finally the 
colony was organized with Strang as "king, apostle, seer, 
revelator, and translator." He had a "royal" press from 
which he issued the Northern Islander to spread his 
gospel. After a tumultous existence the colony went to 
pieces. At the height of his power Strang's reign was 
abruptly terminated by the bullet of an assassin. After 
his death the Gentiles sacked the printing office, de- 
stroyed the temple and burned a large portion of the 
"royal city." The Mormons were exiled and their homes 
confiscated. Some sought refuge in the northern coun- 
ties of Wisconsin, some drifted to Utah, others wan- 
dered elsewhere but the "Kingdom of St. James" was 
no more. 

Social Reforms. The territorial days of Wisconsin 
coincide with the social reforms which were being agi- 
tated throughout the East. Slavery, temperance, wom- 
an's rights and socialism were widely discussed with 
interest and enthusiasm. Emerson, Whittier and Garri- 
son were the leaders in New England. About 1843 the 
people of Southport, now Kenosha, became much in- 
terested in the theories of the French socialist, Frourier. 
He had planned a social system to bring all mankind 
under one government and one language. It was planned 
that people should live in groups called phalanxes, each 
phalanx in one immense house accommodating four 
hundred families. The members were to eat together but 
live in separate compartments. Labor was to be volun- 
tary and in community owned fields and shops but 
directed by officers of the phalanx. The details were so 
interesting and attractive in theory that in 1844 a Wis- 



THE TERRITORY OF WISCONSIN 137 

consin Phalanx was formed with shares at twenty-five 
dollars each. A settlement was located at Ceresco near 
Ripon. 

On Sunday, May 27, 1844, the advance guard of the 
phalanx, consisting of nineteen men and one boy, camped 
upon the site of their new home. The next day work 
v^as begun and, by the Fourth of July, twenty families 
were there to celebrate the national holiday. They built a 
"long house" about four hundred feet in length, consist- 
ing of two rows of tenements with a hall between, all 
under one roof. Meals better than most of their neigh- 
bors enjoyed cost but sixty-three cents a week. 

A charter was obtained from the legislature and the 
new enterprise seemed to be on the highway to success. 
The original members were thrifty and industrious and 
made the community farm pay so well that a dividend of 
eight per cent was paid. Social meetings were held 
almost every night in this pioneer community house. 
Had the members been contented the experiment might 
have proved successful. But they were not contented. 
The strong soon objected to being yoked with the weak 
and lazy, the individual resisted the control of the group 
and some of the members rebelled at the rule forbidding 
an individual from acquiring property for himself. All 
about them, men were becoming rich through land specu- 
lation and other enterprises. So much dissatisfaction 
arose that in 1850 the community received authority 
from^ the legislature to disband. They sold their land at 
considerable profit. In fact, when they went out into 
the worid they had forty thousand dollars to distribute 
among themselves. 

Life in the early settlements was of the simplest char- 
acter. The men and women who were making their 



138 OUR WISCONSIN 

homes in this new territory were used to hard work and 
simple fare. Log houses were built by the pioneer, his 
neighbors holding a hee to cut and haul his logs for him. 
Another hee helped to raise it. Saw mills equipped with 
upright saws and wooden waterwheels were built. The 
land was cleared and crops planted. Because the crops 
sometimes failed for lack of rain and also because mar- 
kets were a long way off, roads bad and prices low, the 
settlers often became discontented and moved away. 
But the more persistent farmers succeeded in spite of 
discouragements and the discomforts of their isolated 
life. 

AA^ages were low. Farm hands were paid from six to 
ten dollars a month, hired girls "worked out" for a dol- 
lar a w^eek and school teachers received two dollars a 
week and "boarded around." Money was hard to get. 
Interest rates were from twelve to twenty-five per cent. 
Wheat sold for only fifty to seventy-five cents a bushel 
but as much as forty bushels to the acre was raised. 

Threat of Secession. The principal event of the year 
was the session of the legislature. From every part of 
Wisconsin prominent men crowded into Madison, when 
the legislature assembled, to share in the primitive gaiety 
of a pioneer capital. There was roughness, hard drink- 
ing, much profanity and numerous fights. In a quarrel 
over the appointment of a sheriff for Grant County a 
member of the legislature was shot and killed. At the 
session of 1843 the territorial council adopted a resolu- 
tion as defiant as that which the legislature of South 
Carolina adopted a dozen years later. The Council 
objected to the boundaries of the territory as they had 
been fixed by Congress, claiming that Wisconsin had 



THE TERRITORY OT irJSCOXSJN 139 

been denied the territori'd ri"-lU'^ pranted bv the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. They said, "If Congress will not grant 
these boundaries Ave will be a state out of the Union and 
possess, exercise and enjoy all the rights, privileges and 
powers of the sovereign, independent State of Wiscon- 
sin." Congress paid no attention to this defiance. The 
council finally saw the right, and, ot course, Wisconsin 
did not secede. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why was Wisconsin organized as a territory? 

2. What were its original boundaries? 

3. What has Wisconsin to complain of in the present boun- 

daries? 

4. In thinking about the relations of a state to the nation, 

should we put the interests of the state or those of the 
nation first? 

5. Explain the origin of the name Wisconsin. Why is it 

called the Badger State? 

6. Explain the location of the capital at Madison. 

7. Who were the territorial governors? 

8. Read the story of the Mormon troubles as given in your 

United States history. How was Strang associated with 
. them? 

9. Why did the Ceresco settlement fail? What good points 

did it have? 

10. If you have access to any books or magazines about frontier 

life you will find it interesting to read them and to com- 
pare the life then and now. 

11. Compare wages and prices then and now. 

12. Could you justify Wisconsin's threat of secession? 



CHAPTER XXII 



THE THIEXIETH STAR 

With the admission of Wisconsin to statehood, May 
29, 1848, the thirtieth star was added to our nation's flag. 
Wisconsin became a state, however, only after much 
contention at home and in Congress. It was the last of 
the states to be formed from the Northwest Territory. 

In 1838, just two years after its organization as a 
territory, an unsuccessful attempt was made in Congress 
to admit Wisconsin as a state. The agitation for state- 
hood was kept up year after year. Finally, in August, 
1846, President Polk signed the bill "to enable the peo- 
ple of Wisconsin to form a constitution and state gov-- 
ernment and for the admission of such state into the 
Union." 

Constitutional Convention. The governor had called 
an election for members of a constitutional convention 
as soon as the enabling act passed Congress. The con- 
vention met in the territorial capitol at Madison^ October 
5, 1846, and continued in session until December 16. 
Many of the ablest leaders of public opinion in the terri- 
tory were members of this body of one hundred and 
twenty-five delegates. It is interesting to note that hali 
of its members were natives of the states of New York 
and Vermont and that but twelve were of foreign birth, 
seven of these being Irishmen. The occupations of the 
members shows the relative importance of the various 



THE THIRTIETH STAR 141 

industries and professions in the territory. There were 
sixty-nine farmers, twenty-six lawyers, seven mechanics, 
six merchants, five miners, three physicians, two lum- 
bermen and one miller. The occupations of the other 
members were not recorded. Nearly all belonged to the 
Democratic party although a few were Whigs. 

Rejection of Constitution. After a session of eleven 
weeks and two days a constitution modeled chiefly upon 
that of New York was adopted. Much personal and 
party feeling had developed during the meeting of the 
committee. One member resigned during the session 
and a number went away determined to defeat the con- 
stitution when it was submitted to the people. On April 
6, 1847, the voters went to the polls and rejected it by a 
vote of 14,119 for and 20,231 against. This decision was 
reached after a spirited campaign in which the stump 
speakers vigorously argued for and against the provisions 
of the proposed constitution. Songs were written, liberty 
poles erected and debates were held by the Friends of 
the Constitution and their opponents. The three arti- 
cles most opposed were : the proposal to grant wives the 
right of separate ownership of property, the limitations 
placed upon banks, and the boundary article according 
to which the lower St. Croix Valley was excluded from 
the state. A separate resolution granting equal suffrage 
and the right to hold office to all male citizens of African 
blood who possessed the same qualifications as white 
citizens, was also rejected by a vote of 7,464 for and 
14,615 against. Wisconsin was not yet ready for negro 
suffrage. 

Second Attempt. A second constitutional conven- 
tion met in December, 1847 with but five members of the 



142 OVK WISCONSIN 

preceding convention holding seats. The farmers and 
lawyers again were in a majority. They produced a 
document similar in most respects to the one of the year 
before but with the objectionable clauses somewhat 
modified. An important addition was an article provid- 
ing for the control of corporations. This constitution 
w^s ratified by the voters in March, 1848, by a vote of 
16,417 for, and 6,174 against. On May 29, 1848, Presi- 
dent Polk approved the act of Congress whereby Wis- 
consin was formally admitted to the sisterhood of states. 
The balance of slave and free states had been preserved 
by the admission of Iowa, in 1846, and Wisconsin, both 
without slavery, and of Florida and Texas In 1845, both 
with slavery. Including Wisconsin there were, at that 
time, fifteen free and fifteen slave states. 

First Presidential Election. In November of the year 
that she was admitted into the Union the infant state was 
called upon to cast her first presidential vote, and by an 
interesting political accident had to choose between two 
former residents. The Whig party had chosen as its 
candidate General Zachary Taylor who for many years 
had been an army officer at Fort Crawford and at Fort 
Winnebago and who had taken part in the Black Hawk 
War. The Democratic candidate was Lewis Cass who 
had served as governor of Michigan when Wisconsin 
was a part of that territory and who had been identified 
in many ways with the development of the new state. 
Taylor was elected although Wisconsin's vote went to 
the Democratic candidate. 

First Governor. In May, 1848, Nelson Dewey was 
elected governor. In his opening message to the legisla- 
ture he congratulated the people because of "the favor- 



THE THIRTIETH STAR 143 

able auspices under which the State of Wisconsin has 
taken her position among the families of states. With 
a population of nearly one quarter of a million and rapidly 
increasing, free from the incubus ot a state debt and rich 
in the return yielded as the reward of labor in all the 
branches of industrial pursuits, our state occupies an 
enviable position abroad that is highly gratifying to the 
pride of our people." 

Population. The population of the new state was 
less than five persons to the square mile. One might 
travel for days either along the three hundred and sixteen 
miles of its greatest length or the two hundred and 
ninety-five miles of its greatest width and not see a 
human habitation. The region northwest of the Wiscon- 
sin River was practically undiscovered country with but 
here and there a lumber camp beside some stream. Mil- 
\vaukee with eighteen thousand people, was the largest 
city. Racine, the second city, claimed four thousand, and 
Madison had about three thousand. 

Industries. The principal industries of the state were 
mining, lumbering and farming. In 1850, forty million 
pounds of lead ore were smelted and one hundred and 
fifty million feet of pine lumber were sawed. Four mil- 
lion bushels of corn were grow^n on the farms. From 
the forests thousands of pounds of maple sugar were pro- 
duced. The manufacture of leather, beer, textiles and 
iron had begun. Wisconsin's resources were just begin- 
ning to be realized. A great future was in store for the 
new state. 



144 OUR WISCONSIN 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. When was Wisconsin admitted into the Union? 

2. What is the process by which a territory becomes a state? 

Trace this process in Wisconsin. 

3. Why was the first constitution rejected? 

4. What were the conditions favorable to the future develop- 

ment of this state? 

5. Who was the first governor? 

6. Why did Congress seek to preserve a balance between the 

free and the slave states? 

7. Would you have voted for Taylor or Cass? Consult your 

United States history before you answer. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



FROM 1848 TO 1860 

A Free State. The twelve years between the admis- 
sion of Wisconsin as a state and the election of Abraham 
Lincoln as President of the United States was a period 
of social and political imrest. By the addition of Texas, 
Oregon and the Mexican cession, more than a million 
square miles had been added to the United States, and the 
country was struggling to determine whether these addi- 
tions should be free or slave territory. Wisconsin was a 
free state and its people opposed the passage of any law 
to admit any state from the territory just acquired unless 
it contained a provision forever prohibiting slavery. 
When the so called Wilmot Proviso was before the 
United States Senate, one of our senators, Isaac P. 
Walker, voted for a bill which would admit such states 
without any mention of slavery. Henry Dodge, the other 
senator, voted against the bill. The Wisconsin legisla- 
ture thereupon passed a resolution asking Walker to 
resign but commending Dodge. Walker kept his seat 
but after this incident always voted with the opponents 
of slavery. 

Fugitive Slave Law. On September 18, 1850, the 
President approved the Fugitive Slave Law. This act 
brought the whole machinery of the government into 
play, if necessary, to capture runaway slaves and return 
them to their masters. Others terms of the law made it 



146 OUR WISCONSIN 

seem that every man and woman of the free states was a 
partner in the slave business and that the North was no 
longer the land of freedom. Wisconsin political conven- 
tions adopted resolutions disapproving this law and even 
declared for its nullification by this state. The law had 
its origin in the attempts of northern people to assist in 
the escape of slaves to Canada where they would be free. 
The usual route of the escaping slaves was across the 
Ohio River, through Ohio or Indiana to the Great Lakes 
and thence to Canada. These secret routes were fre- 
quently called the Underground Railroad. Wisconsin 
was off the "railroad" but occasionally slaves were sent 
through the state. 

It was three years after the passage of the law before 
Wisconsin had occasion to act upon a case arising under 
the Fugitive Slave Law. 

Story of Joshua Glover. In the winter of 1853-54, 
Joshua Glover, a runaway slave, was employed in a saw 
mill a few miles north of Racine. Racine was a way 
station on the Wisconsin underground route to Canada 
and sentiment for the abolition of slavery had made much 
headway among its people. The Missouri master of 
Glover, hearing the slave was near Racine secured a war- 
rant for his return and in company with two United 
States deputy marshals surprised the negro in a little 
cabin near the mill where with three other negroes he 
was playing cards. He resisted arrest but was clubbed 
into submission and handcuffed; then bleeding and 
mangled, he was thrown into an open wagon to be taken 
to Racine. There was so much sympathy for him in 
Racine that his captors concluded to take him to Mil- 
waukee. After a trip requiring most of the night, he was 



FROM 1848 TO i860 147 

thrown at dawn into the county jail where he lay for 
hours before a physician attended to his wounds. 

The antislavery leaders of Milwaukee were at once 
aroused. Sherman M. Booth, then the editor of a small 
newspaper called The Wisconsin Free Democrat, took a 
prominent part in the affair that followed. In the morn- 
ing he rode up and down the streets of Milwaukee on a 
white horse summoning the people to gather at the court- 
house at two o'clock. At five o'clock a delegation of 
citizens from Racine arrived to assist in obtaining jus- 
tice for the negro. At six o'clock the mob demanded that 
the sheriff give up the prisoner. When he refused, the 
doors of the jail were battered down and Glover was 
taken out and handed over to men who put the fugitive 
aboard a lake boat bound for Canada where he arrived 
safely. The deputies and Garland, the owner, were ar- 
rested for assault but later v/ere released. 

Booth now became the center of a long and expensive 
series of lawsuits. His activities were upheld by a ma- 
jority of the papers of the state although the press 
generally denounced mob violence. He was arrested 
under the Fugitive Slave Law but the Supreme Court of 
Wisconsin held this law unconstitutional and he was 
discharged. The United States Supreme Court reversed 
this decision and Booth was again thrown into jail. He 
escaped but was recaptured and remained in confinement 
until he was pardoned by President Buchanan a few days 
before Lincoln was inaugurated. Booth was ruined 
financially, but his activities had much to do with the 
development of a strong abolition sentiment in Wis- 
consin. 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Congressional action which 
aroused further intense antagonism in Wisconsin was 



148 OUR WISCONSIN 

the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854. An 
immediate result of this feeline was a meeting of protest 
held in Ripon on the last day of February, 1854. At this 
meeting it was proposed to form a new political organ- 
ization to be known as the Republican party. The fol- 
lowing July a state convention was held and an organ- 
ization perfected. Michigan leaders had held a state 
convention a week earlier and in consequence have 
claimed for Michigan the honor of originating this great 
political party. However, as the first meeting was held 
in this state and as the name was suggested here, Ripon, 
Wisconsin, is clearly entitled to be called the birthplace 
of the party of Lincoln. 

Railway Charters. Railway charters had been 
granted very early in the history of the territory. In 
1847, four companies were chartered but the Chicago, 
Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company was the only 
one to become active. By 1857 a railroad had been built 
from Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien. In the meantime 
other companies were pushing into the state. The Chi- 
cago and Northwestern built as far as Fond du Lac in 
1858. Congress made two large grants of land to aid in 
railroad construction in Wisconsin. A mad scramble for 
this land took place before the legislature, all of the exist- 
ing companies seeking the rich prizes. The people were 
suspicious of the honesty of the railroads and the state 
officers, and an investigating committee was appointed. 

Political Corruption. A story of wholesale bribery 
and corruption implicating members of the legislature 
and even the governor was told in the three hundred 
pages of the committee's report. It is a curious fact that 
the legislature which was so easily corrupted should in 



FROM iS^i8 TO i860 149 

the same year investigate the administration of the state 
land department. Here criminal conditions were found 
to exist. Political favorites had been permitted to enrich 
themselves at the expense of the public. The books in 
the offices of the treasurer and land commissioners were 
in hopeless confusion. The revelations of the conduct of 
the state officers shocked the state as had the railroad in- 
vestigation. It was at this time that the term Forty 
Thieves was applied to the lobbyists and officials who 
were shamelessly robbing the state. They met at Monk's 
Hall in Madison a square away from the Capitol, where 
they held high revel, calling themselves The Monks of 
Monk's Hall. However, the people of the state generally 
regarded the shorter and uglier term as the more ap- 
propriate one. 

Civil' Strife. Although events connected with the 
slavery dispute seriously occupied the attention of the 
citizens of Wisconsin, they still had time for matters con- 
cerned with the development of the state. Feeling ran so 
high that civil war threatened as a result of the election 
of a governor in 1855. William A. Barstow, a Democrat 
of AVaukesha county, had held the office for one year 
but there were occasional sentiments of disloyalty ex- 
pressed. The new Republican party nominated Coles 
Bashford, a Winnebago county lawyer. The Republicans 
bitterly attacked Barstow's administration, charging him 
with dishonesty in office and accusing him of being a 
party to the railroad frauds which were then taking place. 
The Forty Thieves became an issue in the election. The 
state canvassers of the vote declared Barstow reelected by 
a majority of one hundred and fifty seven. As these offi- 
cers were Democrats, the Republicans at once raised the 
crv of fraud and claimed that the Democrats had falsified 



130 OUR WISCONSIN 

election returns from the counties which were late in 
sending in returns. 

Governor Barstow prepared for his inauguration with- 
out regard to the charges. Early in January seven com- 
panies of militia arrived in Madison and escorted him to 
the Capitol where two thousand persons were awaiting 
his appearance. With much ceremony he went to the 
senate chamber and took the oath of office. In the mean- 
time Bashford stepped into the supreme court room and 
was quietly sworn in by the chief justice. Bashford now 
went to the governor's office and demanded possession 
but of course was refused. 

Tremendous excitement ensued all over the state. Re- 
publicans and Democrats prepared for what they be- 
lieved was inevitable, an appeal to physical force. A 
remarkable lawsuit followed and, after much sparring 
by the iaAvyers, the court finally decided that fraud had 
been committed and that Bashford had been legally 
elected by a majority of more than a thousand votes. In 
the meantime, Barstow had resigned and the office was 
being held by the Lieutenant Governor Arthur Mc- 
Arthur. This increased the difficulties of the situation as 
McArthur seemed resolved to hold the office. There was 
great uneasiness in Madison and throughout the state as 
partisans of both sides had armed themselves and were 
drilling in anticipation of the coming w^ar. But Mc- 
Arthur surrendered without a serious struggle and armed 
conflict was averted. The crisis was so serious that it 
needed but a breath to fan the flame into a state wide con- 
flagration. 

Rapid Progress. Despite official corruption and 
political irregularities, the state made remarkable prog- 



FROM 1S48 TO i860 151 

ress during its first twelve years of statehood. It was an 
era of canal building. Much attention was paid to projects 
to develop water routes by way of the Rock River and 
along the old Wisconsin-Fox route. Both projects failed 
after millions of dollars had been spent by the government 
and by capitalists. In January, 1849, the first telegram to 
reach the state was received in Milwaukee. In 1850, the 
University of Wisconsin was formally opened. Immi- 
grants came to the state in a steady stream. By 1860 the 
state had a population of over three quarters of a million, 
an increase of three hundred per cent since its admission as 
a state. Important laws to supplement the constitution 
were passed and other laws were revised. By the time 
that Wisconsin was called upon to take its part in the 
struggle to preserve the Union, a more healthy tone pre- 
vailed in its public life than the scandals of the earlier 
years had promised. The part played by the state during 
the trying years of the Civil War was one of honesty, 
honor and devoted loyalty. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What was Wisconsin's attitude toward slavery? 

2. What was the Wilmot Proviso? 

3. Do you approve of Booth's conduct? 

4. What was the Underground Railroad? 

5. What law caused the Republican party to be organized? 

6. Do the black spots on the pages of Wisconsin's history in- 

dicate moral weakness of all her people? 

7. Compare the struggle between Barstow and Bashford with 

that of the presidential election of 1876. 

8. Summarize the development of Wisconsin during the first 

twelve years of statehood. 

9. The novel Lamrre deals with an interesting character in 

Wisconsin history. You may be sufficiently interested to 
read this book. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



IN THE CIVIL WAR 

For the Union. The history of the Civil War is a 
record of four years of bravery and perseverance. Wis- 
consin's part in the great struggle which saved the Union 
was one of unquestioned loyalty and devotion. The 
story of the ninety thousand men £rom the Badger State 
who fought under the Stars and Stripes fills many 
volumes of state reports. It was a war for the Union 
and not for the advancement of any state. We must, 
therefore, think of it as a national war and not make use 
of its incidents for the selfish glorification of any state or of 
any man or group of men. We are proud of Wisconsin's 
part because we are proud of the nation. 

Loyalty. There were but four states younger than 
ours when the war began. The population of Wisconsin 
consisted mainly of people from New York and New 
England together with large groups of European 
colonists. The foreign born and men of native birth were 
equally loyal when the emergency came. Loyalty found 
expression in the prompt action of every city and hamlet. 
The hearts of the people were stirred by the impulse of 
patriotism. The national colors met the eye on every 
side and the Star Spangled Banner was sung with a fer- 
vor until then unknown. But there were sentiments of 
disloyalty then as there have been since. One or two 



IN THE CIl'IL WAR 153 

Copperhead newspapers referred to Abraham Lincoln 
as a murderer, a German daily in Milwaukee and an En- 
glish daily in LaCrosse being especially conspicuous in 
their onslaughts on the government and denunciation of 
the war. But in the darkest days of defeat on the battle- 
field and of sedition at home, there was no abatement of 
loyalty among the great mass of the people. Eager 
volunteers kept the state's quota filled. Loyal women 
aided by organizing circles to knit and sew for the men 
in the field. 

Draft Riots. Draft riots occurred as they did in 
other states but without serious results. Wisconsin's 
quota in the draft was 11904, but volunteers had come 
forward in such numbers that it was necessary to raise 
but 4,537 men by conscription. The chief draft troubles 
came from the recently arrived European immigrants, 
not yet Americanized. Having escaped from militarism 
at home they were unwilling to join the Union xA^rmy. 
Luxemburg residents of Ozaukee and Washington Coun- 
ties became riotous. At Port Washington and West 
Bend the situation was serious. Prompt action by the 
governor and the arrest of the leaders checked the 
troubles. At Milwauk-ee financial difBculties complicated 
the situation, and for a week that city was the scene of 
mob violence. Fifty two rioters were arrested after 
which there was no further trouble. These few instances 
of disloyalty but serve to emphasize the fact that the 
state was fundamentally true to the cause of freedom. 

Depression. Wisconsin's three war governors did 
valiant service at home. War expenses were startlingly 
large for a new state but rigid economy and the honesty 



154 OUR WISCQXSIX 

of the state government helped its people to meet all de- 
mands promptly. With the fall of Fort Sumter, thirty- 
eight AVisconsin banks failed and financial depression 
was everywhere evident. But after the decisive battle of 
Gettysburg, the volume of business increased remark- 
ably and industrial paralysis was averted. The state 
taxes for war purposes amounted to $11,652,503.67. This 
was later refunded to the state by the federal government. 
Local governments also raised large amounts that were 
not refunded and of which no record is available. The 
men withdrawn by the war from productive enterprises 
made it still more difficult to carry on the usual affairs 
of life. The state sent 91,379 men to the front, 1,263 
more than the government called for. These volunteers 
constituted one out of every nine of the total population 
or one in every five of the male population, and more 
than half of all the voters of the state. The losses by 
death alone were 10,752, one out of every eight in the 
service. When the war ended and the soldier boys came 
home, there were many widows and orphans who looked 
in vain for their loved ones. At almost every Wisconsin 
fireside there was a vacant chair. Many of those who re- 
turned were the wretched victims of disease or wounds. 

Bravery. Bravery on the field of battle was as con- 
spicuous as was patriotism at home. In his memoirs, 
General W. T. Sherman wrote of our troops: ''We esti- 
mated a Wisconsin regiment as equal to an ordinary 
brigade." In nearly every notable engagement of the 
war, Wisconsin's soldiers had an honorable part. It is 
impossible in a chapter or even in a volume to relate in 
detail the achievements of these Wisconsin troops. 

First Death. A youth of nineteen was the first Wis- 
consin soldier killed by a Confederate bullet. On the 



IN THE CIVIL WAR 155 

morning of July 2, 1861, as the First Wisconsin regiment 
was crossing the Potomac to prevent Johnson from join- 
ing Beauregard at Bull Run, George Drake, a private 
from Milwaukee, w^as shot and killed. At the first battle 
of Bull Run the Second Wisconsin Regiment w^on the 
praises of the commanding officers. This organization 
lost the largest number of men of any regiment in the 
Union Army during the war. Almost twenty per cent of 
its members were killed or died of wounds, and more than 
half were wounded. 

Iron Brigade. Three of the five regiments composing 
the famous Iron Brigade were AVisconsin regiments. 
They deserved this title which they are said to have re- 
ceived at the battle of South Mountain in 1862. General 
]\IcClellan's headquarters in this battle, w^ere so located 
that he could see along the road to the gorge in the moun- 
tain. General Hooker came dashing down the road to 
headquarters. 

General McClellan asked, "What troops are those ad- 
vancing on each side of the pike near the gorge in that 
murderous fire?" 

*'That," replied General Hooker, *'is Gibbon's Brigade, 
men from AVisconsin and Indiana." 

"They must be made of iron," exclaimed McClellan. 

''By the Eternal," responded Hooker, "they are iron; 
if you had seen them at Second Bull Run, as I did, you 
would know them to be of iron." 

"The battle of Antietam was our bloodiest day," sa3^s 
General E. S. Bragg, who at one time commanded the 
Iron Brigade. This was probably the bloodiest battle of 
the Civil War. In it, this famous brigade lost more than 
two thirds of its men. The brigade was built up again 



156 OUR WISCONSIN 

by enlistments and participated in the bloody battle of 
Gettysburg where again it lost two thirds of its men. 

John Burns of Gettysburg. An incident associated 
with the Seventh Wisconsin's part at Gettysburg has 
been made famous by Bret Harte's poem John Burns of 
Gettysburg. During the fighting there, a quaint looking 
old man approached the boys of Company E and asked 
them to loan him a gun. He looked like a character from 
the da3's of the American Revolution ; he had been a 
soldier in both the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. 
When the Confederates drove away his cows and looted 
his barnyard, the old spirit revived in him. General Callis 
of Lancaster gave him a gun and ammunition. In the 
thick of the fight the old man loaded and fired as cool as 
if he were hunting squirrels. Three times wounded, he 
continued to send his leaden messengers of death among 
the enemy, and refused to leave the Wisconsin men whom 
he had chosen as his comrades. 

In almost every important battle of the war there were 
Wisconsin troops. At Corinth, Williamsburg, Chancel- 
lorville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Mission 
Ridge, Spotsylvania and the Wilderness they upheld the 
honor of the Badger State. We cannot review all of 
their deeds here, but they made a proud record for our 
Wisconsin. A few more will sufiice. 

Daring of Gushing. On the twenty-seventh of Octo- 
ber, 1864, Lieutenant W. B. Gushing, a native of Wau- 
kesha County, performed one of the most daring deeds of 
the war. The Confederate ram, Albemarle, had caused 
great destruction to L^nion shipping and had been un- 
successfully attacked by the Federal fleet. At this time 
it was holding the river front of the town of Plymouth, 



IN THE CIVIL WAR 1.S7 

North Carolina, which the Union forces were attacking^ 
by land and water. Gushing planned a torpedo boat 
raid. With a party of fourteen men, he proceeded in the 
dark to where the Albemarle lay. Although the boat 
w^as guarded by a boom of logs which surrounded her 
at a distance of thirty feet and was guarded by a force 
ten times as large as his little crew, the lieutenant ran 
his boat through a rain of bullets to the side of the Albe- 
marle, placed a torpedo under her and blew her up. His 
men were captured but his own daring spirit enabled him 
to elude the enemy and escape. Gushing received a vote 
of thanks from Gongress and the congratulations of the 
Navy Department. He was also promoted to the rank 
of lieutenant commander. A student of naval history has 
written, "It is safe to say that the naval history of the 
w^orld affords no other example of such marvelous cool- 
ness and professional skill as that shown by Gushing." 

In Confederate Prisons. Wisconsin soldiers suffered 
in the great Confederate prisons, Libbey at Richmond, 
Virginia, and Andersonville in Georgia. In many cases 
confinement in these prisons was a living death. On the 
night of February 9, 1864, more than a hundred prisoners 
escaped from the Libbey Prison. A secret tunnel was 
ingenuously excavated under the direction of General 
Harrison G. Hobart, originally of the Twenty-first Wis- 
consin. After the men had passed through, he closed 
the tunnel and followed those w^ho had previously 
escaped. A series of remarkable adventures enabled 
more than half of them to evade the pursuing guards and 
bloodhounds and reach the Union lines in safety. 

"Old Abe." Perched upon a standard or a gun of the 
Eighth Wisconsin Regiment in all of the marches and the 




I 



"Old Abe'' 



7.V THE CiriL IVAR 159 

thirty-six battles and skirmishes in which the regiment 
fought, was a live eagle known as Old Abe. He had been 
captured by an Indian on the Flambeau River, a branch 
of the Chippewa, and sold to some soldiers of Company 
C at Eau Claire for two dollars and a half. With this 
company Old Abe went through the war, screaming 
defiance at the enemy. Usually he was carried upon a 
perch but during battles he was fond of sitting on a can- 
non or of soaring and screaming above the raging tumult 
telow. General Price, a Confederate leader, once ordered 
him to be killed at all hazards but none of the bullets 
which hit him did the eagle any serious harm. Old Abe 
became as well known as many of the leaders of the war 
and, until his death in 1881, was the principal attraction 
at all the great soldiers' reunions. 

Atonement. The incidents which have been told in 
this chapter are but a few of the many that are associated 
with Wisconsin's soldiers in this war. Nor were deeds of 
valor confined to a few regiments. Acts of heroism 
marked the conduct of every regiment and every battery 
that Wisconsin sent to the front. All of these achieve- 
ments have brought honor to this state, but that is the 
smallest part of the contribution of these brave men. We 
should always think of them as having helped to make 
this a "nation one and indivisible," and in the words of the 
immortal Lincoln we should "be dedicated to the task re- 
maining before us, that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the 
last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve 
that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this 
nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and 
that government of the people, by the people, for the peo- 
ple, shall not perish from the earth." 



160 OUR WISCONSIN 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Were Wisconsin soldiers fighting against slavery or to pre- 

serve the Union? 

2. Try to imagine the situation in the state when the troops 

were leaving for the front. 

3. Read Bret Harte's poem John Brown of Gettysburg. Why are 

Wisconsin people interested in it? 

4. What do you know of the bravery of the Iron Brigade? 

5. Compare Cushing's deed with that of Lieutenant Hobson in 

the Spanish American war. 

6. A complete story of Old Abe is given in the Wisconsin 

Memorial Day pamphlet for 1904. Read it. 

7. What did Wisconsin gain by the Civil War? What did it 

lose? 

8. Who were the Copperheads? In war times how do one's 

personal rights and privileges change? What is loyalty? 

9. Did Wisconsin atone in the Civil War for her threats of 

secession at the time of the boundary dispute, and for her 
threatened nullification of the Fugitive Slave Law? 

10. What Civil War regiment, or regiments, were recruited in 

your locality? 

11. What provision in the state constitution prevented the sell- 

ing of bonds to finance the war? 

12. Wisconsin had three governors during the war. Find their 

names in the Blue Book. Make a list of all the governors 
of the state. 

13. There were about 9000 Indians in this state at the time of 

the Civil war. About six hundred volunteered for service 
on the Union side. How does this compare with the 
white man's loyalty? 



CHAPTER XXV 



THE MELTING POT 

The census of 1920 showed Wisconsin to have a 
population of 2,632,670. Of these 459,904 were foreign 
born. About one-third (150,680) of these came from 
Germany. Poland comes next with 50,548. Norway, 
Russia, and Swe3en follow in the order named. There 
"w^efe about three hundred thousand additional who were 
born in America of parents born abroad. Almost every 
ff3ttotta4TtT is represented, even Africa has set sixty-three 
persons born in the dark continent. If any state in the 
Union is a melting-pot that state is our own. 

Origin of Popul^jtion. Before jthe_days of lead mining 
the population was chiefly French. During the twelve 
years that Wisconsin was a territory the population was 
increased principally by Americans from the South and 
East, but since the early days of state-hood it has gained 
population principally by immigration from Europe, Ger- 
mans and Scandinavians being the most numerous. In 
addition there are many English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, 
Poles, Bohemians, Hollanders, Russians and French. In 
the last few years the gains have been largely from the 
southern countries of Europe, the Italians predominating. 
The merging of all these peoples into one who shall have 
American ideals, American standards and American con- 
ceptions of democracy has been a serious problem in Wis- 
consin. For the most part these people from the old 
world have been glad to learn our language, our form of 
government, our customs and our understandins: of t^'^ 



162 OUR WISCONSIN 

relation of the individual to the state. The public schools 
have been an important agency in the transformation. 
All of the processes which change foreigners into Ameri- 
can citizens, citizens w^ithout a hyphen, have been not in- 
aptly called the Melting Pot. 

Reasons for Migration. The migrations to Wisconsin 
from the various countries of Europe were due to the 
same causes that resulted in the settlement of the thir- 
teen original colonies. These causes may be classed as 
political, religious and economic. In Germany there had 
been much discontent with the existing government anc! 
several uprisings intended to make that country more 
democratic, had been put down. Thousands of dissatis- 
fied Germans, therefore, turned to America as a land of 
liberty and opportunity. The low price of land and the 
liberal laws of Wisconsin attracted many of them to this 
territory. Plans were made for a German-American 
state, and Wisconsin was regarded as the ideal region for 
carrying out this program. Here would be a state with 
German life, German schools, German courts and as- 
semblies and German science and philosophy. German 
would be the official language and the German spirit 
would rule. 

This project resulted in a great deal of advertising of 
the resources, climate and laws of Wisconsin ; and, al- 
though no such German state was ever formed, Germans 
as groups and as individuals came here in large numbers. 
It also chanced that in the same year that Wisconsin was 
admitted into the Union, a political, economic and social 
upheaval in Germany known as the Revolution of 1848 
took place. This sent a large number to America, where 
they turned their attention to the state in which an alien 
could vote after a residence of one year. 



THE MELTING POT 163 

The influx of German immigrants was fairly steady 
until the days of the Civil War. Then, after a temporary 
cessation, it continued until the close of the century. To- 
day, perhaps a third of Wisconsin's people are eithe 
German born or are children of German born parents. 
The eastern and central parts of the state received the 
largest number of German immigrants. 

In a little while the Germans were followed by other 
nationalities. Before 1840, there were but six Norwegian 
settlements in North America, and three of these were 
located in Wisconsin. The first Norwegian settlement in 
Wisconsin was the fourth in America. It was founded at 
Jefferson Prairie in Rock County by Ole Nattestad. He 
was soon joined by many others. To-day, the Norwegian 
element in our population is second only to the German 
They are scattered all over the state, but are most 
numerous in Dane County. They also constitute an im- 
portant element in the northern part where they have 
had much to do with the development of that portion of 
the state. 

Cornishmen from the southwest of England early 
settled in the lead region. As the lead mines in their 
native country had declined in importance, they hoped, 
in the new world, to find new prosperity. The discovery 
of gold in California caused many of them to move to 
that state but most of them returned. A large number of 
the people of the cities and villages of the three lead min- 
ing counties in the southwestern part of the state are 
their descendants. There are many Welsh people in this 
section also. Other Welsh settlements are found in 
Winnebago, Columbia, Dodge, Sauk and Racine Counties. 

Most of the Irish who came to the new world about 
the middle of the century preferred to remain in the cities. 



164 OUR WISCONSIN 

Early in its history the city of Milwaukee had a con- 
siderable Irish element whose leaders had much influence 
in politics. The Irish are now widely distributed through 
the state, seldom being found in colonies. 

Swiss Colony. In some respects the most interesting 
story connected with the settlement of Wisconsin is that 
of the Swiss colony in Green County. These people came 
from the mountainous canton of Glarus, Switzerland. In 
1844 there was much distress there because the popula- 
tion had increased until the cultivated land of the valleys 
and the summer pastures on the Alps would no longer 
support all of them. After much discussion it was re- 
solved to send some of their number to America. An 
appropriation was made to pay the expenses of two repre- 
sentatives who were to locate a tract of land in the new 
world for those who were willing to leave their mountain 
homes. The two wandered over a large part of Ohio, In- 
diana and Illinois, coming finally to a tract thirty miles 
from Mineral Point, Wisconsin, which they deemed 
suitable for colonization. The rocky slopes reminded 
them of their own mountainous Glarus, and they chris- 
tened the spot New Glarus. Here they built some cabins 
and awaited the coming of their kinsmen. 

It was supposed that the others would wait until a 
report was sent back but, impatient to move, nearly two 
hundred men, women and children started on the long 
journey only a month after their representatives had left. 
Arrangements had been made for but one hundred and 
forty persons. Consequently, the hardships of the journey 
were terrible. Packed in the narrow quarters of a boat, 
they sailed down the Rhine, sleeping on the bare boards 
of the vessel's deck and dependent upon the country for 



THE MELTIXG POT 165 

provisions. While waiting for the ocean vessel at New 
Dieppe, they camped on the shore in gypsy fashion. After 
forty-nine days of ocean travel the half-starved party 
arrived at Baltimore. Two deaths had occurred during 
the voyage. 

They went to St. Louis where they expected to meet 
the two pioneers who had preceded them. There two 
houses were rented, in which they lived while two more 
men went in search of the lost leaders. Perseverance 
finally won and the party started overland from Galena 
to their new home in Wisconsin. The more robust of 
the men went on ahead carrying their belongings on their 
backs while the remainder of the party followed at their 
leisure. In August, 1845, they arrived in New Glarus, five 
thousand miles from their native mountains and valleys. 
They took up the occupation of dairying which they had 
followed in their native land and soon made the district 
we know as Green County famous for its Swiss cheese. 
It is estimated that there are now in Green County about 
eight thousand persons of Swiss birth or Swiss descent. 
The county is one of the leading dairy sections' of the 
world. 

Similar tales could be told of the struggles of other 
groups to make homes in Wisconsin. The loyalty of 
these settlers was shown in the Civil War when whole 
regiments were recruited from people of a single national- 
ity. The Ninth, the Twenty-sixth and the Forty-fifth 
regim.ents were German ; the Fifteenth, Scandinavian ; the 
Seventeenth, Irish; the Twelfth, French; and in many 
others was a sprinkling of foreign-born soldiers and In- 
dians. One of the great leaders of the time was General 
Carl Schurz, a German who fled from his native country 




Carl Schurz 



THE MELTING POT 167 

after the Revolution of 1848, settled in Watertown, Wis- 
consin, and later became a member of a President's cabi- 
net. In the Great War, Wisconsin young men of foreign 
parentage did their part as well as the native born. The 
product of the melting pot v^as proven to be one hundred 
per cent American. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why may Wisconsin be called a polyglot state? 

2. What per cent of the inhabitants are foreign-born? 

3. What are some of the differences between the laws of Wis- 

consin and those of European countries? 

4. Are there any foreign settlements near your home? 

5. Why should Wisconsin have a strong compulsory education 

law? 

6. Locate on a map all places named in this chapter. 



CHAPTER XXVI 



SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 

After the return of the soldiers from the Civil War the 
history of Wisconsin was much the same as that of its 
neighbors. There was one great desire in the hearts of 
the people, that of restoring the prosperity of the Badger 
State. Forests were felled, cities were built, ore was 
mined, manufacturing was established and railroads w^ere 
constructed. Soon the industries of the state became 
more diversified than they had ever been, and distributed 
among the three great sources of wealth, agriculture, 
mining and manufacturing. The industrial develop- 
ment will be sketched in another chapter, as will the 
development of education and literature. We shall here 
look at some of the political and other events which held" 
the attention of the people. 

Johnson's Impeachment. The impeachment of An- 
drew Johnson by the House of Representatives in the 
bitter days of reconstruction that followed the Civil War 
aroused much interest in this state as in others. The 
trial in the Senate lasted for two months. When the vote 
was taken thirty-five senators (all Republicans) voted 
for conviction and nineteen senators (twelve Democrats 
and seven Republicans) voted for acquittal. Johnson 
thus failed of conviction although a change of one vote 
would have made the constitutional two-thirds majority 
and have resulted in his removal from ofifice. One of the 



SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 169 

senators to vote against his conviction was a Wisconsin 
senator, James R. Doolittle. The state opposed him at 
that time and he failed of re-election, but it now honors 
him for his brave stand. It would have been a dangerous 
precedent to have removed a President because he dif- 
fered with Congress and quarreled with it. A Wiscon- 
sin senator thus helped to save the country from doing 
what it might afterward have regretted. 

Railroad Extension. Immediately after the war, rail- 
road extension was carried on in the state at a remark- 
able rate. Governor Washburn pointed out the dangers 
that might arise from the development and control of 
transportation by corporations. He tried to combat the 
pass evil but was unsuccessful. His warning, however, 
came just before the panic of 1873 which demoralized the 
commercial and manufacturing interests of the state and 
swept a new party into power. The legislature promptly 
passed the Potter law, a drastic measure to control the 
railroads. It organized a railroad commission and gave it 
very large powers. The railroad managers fought the 
law in the courts but they were defeated and compelled 
to obey it. Later the law was materially modified in the 
interests of the companies, and eventually it became of 
little importance in the control of railroads. In 1905, after 
another long struggle, the state created another railroad 
commission and clothed it with powers as broad as those 
given under the Potter law. This measure and a bill 
regulating the taxation of corporations were passed under 
the leadership of Governor LaFollette after a long and 
bitter poHtical campaign for the control of the corpora- 
tions by the state. The railroad problem has not yet been 
settled satisfactorily although it has been under consid- 
eration for so long a time. 



170 OUR WISCONSIN 

Later Social Reforms. Alany other significant poli- 
tical contests have taken place in the state but most of 
these are so recent that a study of them must be post- 
poned until historians can look at them dispassionately. 
We have had struggles over the extension of suffrage to 
women, over prohibition, over the teaching of foreign 
languages, over taxation and over the government of 
cities. Some of these have been settled. Wisconsin was 
among the thirty-six states to ratify the amendment to 
the Federal constitution prohibiting the manufacture and 
sale of alcoholic beverages, and was the first state to 
ratify the amendment giving women the right to vote. 

Spanish American War. Wisconsin did her part in 
the Spanish American War. In some of the engagements 
of that short war soldiers of the Badger State repeated 
the heroic deeds of the Civil War. The losses sustained 
by Wisconsin in this war were very small, two men being 
killed in battle and three wounded. About seventy lost 
their lives from diseases contracted in the camps. 

Forest Fires. In 1871 the state suffered from ter- 
rible forest fires. From the eighth day of July until the 
ninth of October not a drop of rain fell in northern Wis- 
consin. Wells dried up, swamps disappeared, streams 
became rills and finally ceased to flow. The forests had 
been cut and the dry brush left in the place where the 
trees had once stood. The towns were built of lumber, the 
fences were made of rails, everything was ready for the 
spark which touched ofif the conflagration. On the eighth 
and ninth days of October the flames swept across 
Oconto, Brown, Door, Shawano, Manitowoc and Ke- 
waunee Counties, burning everything in their path. 
Trains, caught in the path of the flames, were run through 



SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 171 

the fires at full speed to prevent their being set on fire. 
More than a thousand lives were lost, many people were 
injured and thousands lost all of their possessions. But 
for prompt measures of relief the horrors of starvation 
would have been added to those of fire. From all parts 
of the country came contributions for the relief of the 
sufferers. It chanced that this destructive fire occurred 
at the same time as the vast prairie fires of Minnesota 
and the memorable conflagration which destroyed a large 
part of Chicago. 

Wisconsin has since had many disastrous fires but 
none to equal that of 1871. A severe drought in 1908 
threatened a repetition of the horrors of the earlier years. 
A great deal of damage was done but a timely drop in 
temperature and a heavy rain averted what might have 
been an appalling tragedy. 

Severe floods have been experienced. The breaking 
of a dam almost destroyed the city of Black River Falls. 
Several cyclones have caused the destruction of property 
and the loss of life. In New Richmond on the twelfth of 
June, 1899, a storm lasting for less than five minutes 
killed more than fifty people, injured scores of others and 
destroyed property worth more than a million dollars. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. In your history of the United States read the account of the 

impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Was Senator Doolittle 
justified in voting against the President's impeachment? 

2. What influences have helped to make Wisconsin a great 

state? 

3. What are commissions? Why is the Railroad Commission 

so important to us? 

4. Why should state officers be forbidden to use railway passes? 

5. Describe any great disaster that has occurred in Wisconsin. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



IN THE WORLD WAR 

When the Great War broke out In Europe In 1914 the 
people of the United States were shocked and surprised. 
They tried to preserve a neutral attitude, but as the hor- 
rors of the conflict became clear to them and the aggres- 
sions of the Central Powers more remorseless their 
sympathies turned toward the victims of militarism, 
especially Belgium. When the acts of Germany toward 
the United States had become so intolerable that a con- 
flict with her could not be avoided, our people were still 
trying to avoid war if it were possible honorably to do so. 
A¥hen war was declared against Germany on April 6, 
1917, the country was convinced that the step was abso- 
lutely necessary. Wisconsin was ready to do her part 
and she did it w^ell. It is too early to write a satisfactory 
account of this state's activities in the two and a half 
years of war. The records are not yet available from 
which to write a clear narrative of the work of the Badger 
State in the Great War. Enough is known, however, to 
make every citizen of the state proud of the achievements 
of our Wisconsin. 

It has been pointed out that Wisconsin has a large 
population of German birth or descent. There were 
many noisy propagandists at work among them appeal- 
ing to their racial prejudice and working upon their 
sympathies for the Fatherland. To many it seemed for a 



IN THE WORLD WAR 173 

time as if they might be successful and that this state 
would not be found loyal and true ; but when the test came 
Wisconsin was found steadfast. When it became neces- 
sary to decide for or against our country, our foreign born 
proved their loyalty to the Stars and Stripes. The answer 
to those who doubted Avhere Wisconsin stood was not 
the speeches of a noisy minority but the proud record of 
the whole state throughout the war. 

Councils of Defense. The list of activities in which 
Wisconsin was first among the states is a long and 
worthy one. The first State and County Councils of De- 
fense were organized here. Wisconsin was the first state 
to make complete reports to Washington of the four 
draft registrations. In the four Liberty loans and the 
Victory loan Wisconsin subscribed $471,194,250. The 
governors of the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago re- 
ported that Wisconsin over subscribed her quota by a 
larger per cent than any other state in the district. They 
said, "The victory which came to America and her allies 
in the great war could not have been obtained without 
the financial support which was secured through the 
Liberty loan organization by the government. We be- 
lieve, therefore, that the Wisconsin men and women who 
achieved so notable a record are well justified in con- 
sidering this work among the most meritorious accom- 
plishments of their lives." 

Legislation. Wisconsin was the first state to pass 
legislation giving aid to soldiers' dependents ; the first to 
inaugurate meatless and wheatless days ; the first to give 
her soldiers away from home the right to vote ; and the 
first to organize state and county history commissions 
to preserve the records which would later tell the story 
of her part in the war. 



174 OUR WISCONSIN 

Surgery. Wisconsin furnished more surgeons for 
the war, in proportion to her population, than any other 
state. She had no serious labor troubles to delay pro- 
duction of the necessary war supplies. She decreased 
her crime record. She paid her way as she went and did 
not have to issue bonds as was necessary during the 
Civil War. 

Red Cross, etc. In work for the Red Cross, Salva- 
tion Army, and in all of the relief work she did more than 
her share. She sent fifteen thousand school boys to farms 
to assist in keeping up the production of food. She did 
every thing that was asked of her by the national govern- 
ment and usually much more than was asked. In 1919 
she enacted a law giving liberal bonuses to all who had 
served in the war. 

Schools. The schools of the state, from the Univer- 
sity down to the kindergarten, took an active part in all 
war work. University records show that more than three 
thousand of her students and alumni were in the service. 
About two hundred of her faculty members entered the 
army, navy or other war activity. Professor Max Mason 
of the physics department invented the famous s,ubmarine 
detector, a device by which submarines could be heard 
and definitely located so as to be kept away from or 
destroyed with a depth bomb. Other inventions and in- 
vestigations were the result of the activities of the scien- 
tific men of the University. The Normal schools sent 
forty of their teachers and more than two thousand stu- 
dents. This is a remarkable record as a large percentage 
of the enrollment of the Normal schools are young women 
and, therefore, not eligible to enter military service. 

The public schools under the direction of State Super- 
intendent C. P. Cary were used as means of distribution 



IN THE WORLD WAR 175 

of information about the war and in the encouragement of 
all patriotic work. There were thrift societies, junior Red 
Cross organizations, boys' defense leagues and other or- 
ganizations at work to utilize the energies of the young 
people. The schools acquitted themselves with credit. 
Through them was demonstrated the fine qualities that 
are in the youth of the nation and the state. 

Registration. When war was declared it was not 
known whether the soldiers were to be recruited by draft 
or by volunteering. Congress decided, in a bill which 
became a law on May 17, 1918, to raise troops by the 
draft. The plans for registration of all men within the 
age limits had been carefully worked out by General 
Crowder long before the law was enacted. June 5 was 
set aside as registration day for all persons between the 
ages of twenty-one and thirty-one inclusive. There were 
some who felt that the draft would be resisted ; but they, 
too, were wrong. Wisconsin had the honor, on Satur- 
day morning, June 6, 1917, to send the following telegram 
to General Crowder : 

"Four o'clock A. M. All Wisconsin counties and cities have reported 
registrations complete. Total 218,700." 

There were three more registrations. The total for 
Wisconsin was 584,559. Of this number, about 90,000 
were sent to the camps to become active participants m 
the war. 

Willard Purdy. The response of the boys to the call 
of honor was noteworthy, thirty-two thousand enlisting 
voluntarily. Altogether about one hundred and twelve 
thousand of the flower of Wisconsin's manhood went 
into the service. Over eight thousand names were on 



176 OUR WISCONSIN 

the casualty lists and almost two thousand were killed. 
Stories of the bravery of these soldiers would fill a 
volume. One story, that of Willard Purdy of Marshfield, 
is an illustration of the fine courage and unselfish devotion 
shown by American soldiers. 

Purdy's narrative is a story of splendid heroism. His 
brother, Chester A. Purdy, wrote a letter to his mother 
describing the sacrifice : 

*'I had been out wath a scouting party and had 
just come in from No Man's Land. All the boys 
carried bombs in their shirt fronts. When Willard 
reached in to get his, the pin that holds the igniter, 
fell out from one of the three he had in his shirt. He 
pulled out two but did not get the right one. There 
were too many men around to pull out his shirt and 
let the ignited bomb drop in the trench, so he cried 
to the m.en to run and he hung on to all three bombs, 
bending over and holding them close to his body. 
He could probably have saved his own life if he had 
pulled out his shirt and let the bombs drop, but if 
he had done that he would surely have killed five or 
six of his comrades. He chose death rather than 
let his men get the fragments from the bursting 
bombs. All three bombs exploded. He did not suf- 
fer much, which was merciful. It was an heroic 
. act." 

32d Division. Many of the famous divisions in the 
army that went to France had Wisconsin companies 
serving in their ranks. The Thirty-second Division, 
which was made up largely of members of the Wisconsin 
National Guard, was especially famous. Many of its 
members received decorations from the French com- 
manding officers. It was known as Les Terrihles, or the 
Terrible Ones. This division was sent to France during 



IX THE WORLD Jl'JR 177 

the months of January, February and March, 1918. The 
only losses en route were those on the steamer Tuscania 
which was torpedoed near the coast of Ireland on Feb- 
ruary 5, 1918. The division went into action in July, and 
when the Armistice was signed in November, it held im- 
portant lines in the Argonne Forest. 

Rainbow Division. Another famous division was the 
Forty-second, generally known as the Rainbow Division. 
In this division were three \Msconsin companies. It 
went into action early in 1918. The first reports showed 
about a hundred casualties in the Fond du Lac company. 
The city of Fond du Lac had, in this war, the largest 
number of men killed and the largest number wounded 
of any city in Wisconsin. 

When the complete story of the military activities of 
Wisconsin soldiers in the Great War has been written, 
the youth of the state will read with a thrill the storv- of 
these heroic men who helped to "make the world safe for 
democracy." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. General Crowder said, "I have come to expect the impos- 

sible from Wisconsin." What did he mean? 

2. To what regiments were the boys from your section 3S- 

signed? 

3. Of what school societies were 3-011 a member? 

4. Why should we be proud of Wisconsin's war record? 

5. Tell to the class some story of heroism in the Great War 

that 3^ou have heard. 

6. Look up \'Our county's record as given in the Blue Book for 

1919. 

7. Why not write a short history of your community's part in 

the recent war? 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



WISCONSIN IN INDUSTRY 

The industries of W isconsin have been closely con- 
nected with its development and have largely deter- 
mined the history which we have briefly traced. We 
have seen that the fur trade dominated until about 1830 
when lead mining took its place to be followed in turn by 
farming and manufacturing. The vast forests of the 
state made the production of lumber on a large scale 
profitable. Consequently, for many years the product of 
the sawmill equaled, in value, that of the farm. Then 
came manufacturing. To-day, in proportion to its popu- 
lation, Wisconsin leads all the states west of Ohio in the 
value of its manufactured products. 

Mining. With the decline of lead mining in the 
fifties, mining became, for many 3^ears, relatively an un- 
important industry. Then it was found that zinc was to 
be had in immense quantities, and ore production was re- 
sumed in Grant, Iowa and LaFayette Counties. The zinc 
output now ranks second only to the production of iron. 
Iron in large quantities was discovered in the eighties in 
the northern part of the state. F^om four to five million 
dollars worth of ore is now produced annually. The 
mineral production of Wisconsin now^ runs as high as 
$20,000,000 in value in a single year although the state 
does not rank high as a mineral producer. 



WISCONSIN IN INDUSTRY 179 

Lumber. The lumber industry has been, and still is, 
an important factor in the commercial development of 
the state. Originally nearly all of Wisconsin was 
covered with forests. Some of the finest stands of pine 
trees in the world were to be found here. However, it 
was not until the Civil War that lumbering became im- 
portant. During the war the demand for lumber and the 
increase in prices caused a rush into the pineries. Great 
forest fires in October, 1871, swept over the timber coun- 
try but that winter no less than 1,600,000,000 feet of lum- 
ber was the output. Logging, however, reached its 
highest development between 1890 and 1900. For the 
first five years of the present century, Wisconsin stood 
first as a lumber producing state. For many years the 
value of the lumber produced in the United States ex- 
ceeded in value its gold output. This has declined now 
since the forests have been so rapidly destroyed. Yet, 
for many years to come, the forests that remain will pro- 
duce millions of dollars worth of lumber yearly. It is 
estimated that forty five per cent of the area of Wis- 
consin is still woodland of some sort. 

Agriculture. Wisconsin lies in a region of unusual 
fertility. This has resulted in the development of agri- 
culture, particularly in the southern, the eastern and the 
central parts of the state. At present only about sixty 
per cent of the land is actually in farms. The census of 
1910 showed 21,060,066 acres devoted to farming. The 
size of the average farm was one hundred nineteen acres 
of which sixty-seven acres were improved. 

Dairying has become very important. Its develop- 
ment is due largely to the invention in Wisconsin of the 
Babcock Milk Test. In 1912 there were more than three 



180 OUR WISCONSIN 

thousand cheese factories and creameries in the state. 
Since then a large number of condenseries have been es- 
tablished, so that Wisconsin is now the leading dairy- 
state of the Union. The importance of an adequate food 
supply was demonstrated by the Great War. Agricul- 
ture, it seems, is destined to become of increasing im- 
portance. 

Manufacturing. Some kinds of manufacturing have 
been carried on in Wisconsin since frontier days but its 
principal development began in the decade of the Civil 
War. The woodworking industries were of course of im- 
portance first. The value of the wood products of Wis- 
consin is, annually, more than one hundred million 
dollars. Second in value are the products of the dairy 
industry, about seventy-five million dollars each year. 
Iron and steel, leather, flour and feed are other important 
products. There are nearly ten thousand manufacturing 
establishments in the state. More than one-third of the 
manufactured products (in value) are made in Milwaukee. 

Transportation is closely related to production. 
Originally the rivers, lakes and canals were the principal 
arteries of transportation. Then came the railroads. The 
first railroad in W^isconsin was built in 1851 from Mil- 
waukee to Waukesha. In 1854 it reached Madison. 
Three years later it had been extended to Prairie du 
Chien. The building of railroads has gone on steadily 
until several important trunk lines cross the state, con- 
necting Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Minneapolis. 
The discovery of copper and iron in northern Wisconsin 
resulted, during the eighties, in the building of railroads 
in that section of the state. The extension of the rail- 
ways through the forests was the chief factor in the 
development of the vast wilderness of the north and west. 



WISCOXSIX IX IXDUSTRY 181 

Inventions. Wisconsin has to her credit several In- 
ventions which have greatly influenced the industrial 
development of the state and the world. The first patent 
taken out by a resident of this state was issued in 1842 to 
David Irvin for an improvement of saddles. Now from 
five to six hundred patents are annually awarded to citi- 
zens of Wisconsin. Of course, very few of them prove of 
importance. We can claim, however, the harvester, the 
twine binder, the milk test, the Lee rifle, used by the 
British army, the thermostat for regulating heat, the 
Reynolds-Corliss type of steam engine, the typewriter 
and the roller flour mill. 

Many attempts had been made to produce a machine 
that would do writing with the type letters used in print- 
ing, but none was successful until C. Latham Sholes of 
Kenosha made the first typewriter in 1867. He organized 
a company to manufacture these machines and, in 1870, 
placed twelve on the market at one hundred twenty-five 
dollars each. These were readily sold. Three years later, 
when the machine had been greatly improved, the com- 
pany was moved to Ilion, New York, and the manufacture 
of typewriters on an extensive scale was begun. 

Binders. George Esterly, a citizen of W^isconsin, had 
early perfected a harvester. This invention never would 
have reached the important place it now occupies in agri- 
culture had it not been for John F. Appleby who, when a 
boy, lived near Esterly. He grew up on a farm and was 
always greatly interested in machinery. In 1858, when 
he was eighteen years old, he made the first knotter that 
would really tie a knot. It was almost identical with 
the ones used today on the binders sold throughout the 



182 OUR WISCONSIN 

world. Nothing was done with it at first. When the 
Civil War came, Appleby dropped his mechanical in- 
terests and went to the war. Returning, he worked at 
plans for a harvesting machine that would bind the grain 
with a wire band. By 1874 he had such a machine made 
at Beloit, but it was never successful. He did not despair. 
Alone in a garret he designed a new machine to use the 
knotter he had invented years before. The first one was 
successfully tried in a field near Beloit in the summer of 
1877. The next year one hundred and fifteen self binders 
were built. The first one to be sold was purchased by a 
farmer in Traverse County, Texas. Appleby sold the 
right to build the binders to several prominent manu- 
facturers of harvesting machinery, among them Deering 
and McCormick of Chicago. This invention has prob- 
ably saved a billion dollars in the harvests of the world. 

Roller Mills. After wheat is harvested it must be 
ground into flour before it is usable. Until John Stevens 
of Neenah invented the modern roller flour mill all wheat 
was ground between mill stones. Stevens began his ex- 
periments in an old mill in 1870. In four years he had 
perfected a new process, but it was not until 1880 that it 
was patented. In the meantime, he did his milling under 
lock and key in order to keep the process secret, producing 
such a fine grade of flour that it brought two dollars a 
barrel more than that made by the old methods. For 
years, flour made in the roller mills operating under the 
Stevens patent was known as patent flour. Now it is the 
only kind manufactured in marketable quantities. 

The results of this invention have been very impor- 
tant. It is now possible to grind the hardest wheat into 
the best of flour. This has made the northern states and 



WISCONSIN IN INDUSTRY 183 

Canada great wheat producing regions, which they never 
could have become without this invention as the kind of 
wheat grown there could not be ground successfully by 
the old method. This invention has made Minneapolis 
the largest milling center in America. It has reduced 
the cost of milling one-half and thus saves the consumer 
millions of dollars each year. 

Wisconsin's contribution of the harvester, the twine 
binder and the roller mill to the world's industry has had 
much to do with increasing the world's supply of bread. 

Dairying. "Australia is indebted to Wisconsin for its 
vast dairy industry and for its success in dairying," says 
the head of one of that continent's agricultural schools. 
The same report comes from every part of the world in 
which dairying is at all important, for through the use 
of the Babcock Milk Tester dairying has changed from 
one of the most haphazardous of industries to an exact and 
attractive business enterprise. It has increased the value 
of Wisconsin's dairy product more than a milHon dollars 
a year. 

Babcock Test. Stephan Moulton Babcock, like James 
Appleby, was born in the state of New York. He 
received a high school education and was graduated from 
Tufts College. When Cornell University opened in 1871, 
he went there intending to study engineering but soon 
became interested in chemistry. He was later made a 
member of the faculty. Ultimately, he specialized in the 
study of milk and was chosen agricultural chemist for the 
New York agricultural experiment station. In 1888 he 
came to the University of Wisconsin and has been a resi- 
dent of the state since that time. 

The cream separator had been invented in Denmark 
but there was great need of a simple means of determin- 



184 OUR WISCONSIN 

ing the amount of butter fat in milk. The state legisla- 
ture appropriated a sum of money to carry on experi- 
ments. Dr. Babcock was assigned to the task and worked 
steadily for two years, reading all the books, magazines 
and scientific publications that in any way related to the 
chemistry of milk and making many experiments. Per- 
sistently he kept at work until, one day in 1890, he came 
to Dean Henry, who had assigned the work to him, and 
said, "Well, I've got it." And so it proved. The test and 
machine that he first used are practically the same as 
used now. A bulletin was promptly issued to describe the 
"new method for the determination of fat in milk, 
adapted to creameries and milk factories." A statement 
at the close told of the manufacturers who were to make 
the apparatus and was accompanied by this remarkable 
sentence, "The test is not patented." 

This sentence reflects the character of Dr. Babcock. 
He has always refused to take out patents on his inven- 
tions, declaring that the work belongs to the state which 
he is serving and not to him or any other individual. Had 
he patented his invention, as he had a right to do, he 
might have earned millions of dollars. 

Water Power. Although nature did not give Wis- 
consin any deposits of coal, its rivers provide an abundant 
water power. Because of this resource, Wisconsin was 
an early field for the work of electrical engineers. Great 
power plants have been located on the rivers of Wiscon- 
sin. Electrical power promises a great future for manu- 
facturing. It is of interest to know that the first 
commercial electric lighting plant in the United States began 
operation in Appleton on August 20, 1882. 



WISCONSIN IN INDCSTRY 185 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. This chapter is but a mere summary of some of the facts of 

industrial Wisconsin. Both teacher and pupil will do well 
to refer to Merrill's Industrial Geography of Wisconsin; 
Part One of the Wisconsin Blue Book for 1915; and to 
Bulletin XXVI, 1913, of the Wisconsin Geological and 
Natural History Survey. 

2. What are the principal industries of your locality? 

3. What is meant by ''conservation of the natural resources" 

of the state? 

4. From the State Railroad Map estimate the number of miles 

of railroad in Wisconsin. Name several of the principal 
systems that cross the state. 

5. Why has lumbering become of less importance than for- 

merly? 

6. Name some Wisconsin inventions? 

7. Which invention do you think has been most valuable to 

Wisconsin? 

8. Why did Professor Babcock not patent his milk tester? 

9. Do you think he is a great man? Why? 

10. What are the five most valuable products of Wisconsin? 



CHAPTER XXIX 



WISCONSIN IN LITERATURE 

Although Wisconsin cannot claim a group of authors 
comparable with those who made Massachusetts the 
leader in American literature, she has to her credit a num- 
ber of writers who have achieved national reputation. It 
is impossible to estimate correctly the work that writers 
of the present are doing; time alone can do this. We 
hope that as the years pass by, men and women living 
in Wisconsin will be able to present the life of the people 
and their feelings, their thoughts, and their ideals in that 
simple and sincere language which characterizes all great 
literature. Shakespeares and Miltons we may never have, 
but the past justifies us in hoping for a Robert Burns or a 
John Greenleaf Whittier who will sing into the hearts 
of the world the songs of Wisconsin home life. 

Hamlin Garland. Perhaps the most widely known 
Wisconsin author is Hamlin Garland, who was born at 
West Salem, La Crosse County, September 16, 1860. His 
novels are widely read and he is a popular contributor 
to our best magazines. Some excellent poetry has come 
from his pen and we are indebted to him for one of the 
best biographies of General Grant. In a collection of 
short stories. Main Travelled Roads, he has given us some 
interesting stories faithfully and sympathetically pictur- 
ing early life in western Wisconsin. Another splendid 
account of farm life is his Boys' Life on the Prairie. Re- 



WISCONSIN IN LITERATURE 187 

cently he has published A Son of the Middle Border which 
William Dean Howells says is "an autobiography that 
ranks with the very greatest in literature." A companion 
volume A Daughter of the Middle Border has been ac- 
corded the highest honors. 

Grant Showerman. Grant Showerman in A Country 
Chronicle has painted an unusually vivid picture of A\^is- 
consin life in the eastern part of the state as it was lived 
in the eighties. It supplements the work of Garland and 
carries us forward ten years in the development of the 
state. With great skill he lifts the fundamental good- 
humor, friendliness and honesty of his people above their 
harsh and rough exteriors. 

David Grayson. A\>iting under the pen-name of 
David Grayson, Ray Stannard Baker has raised country 
life to the level of an idyl. This he has done in Adven- 
tures in Contentment, Adventures in Friendship, and The 
Friendly Road. Of the three, Baker is most poetic : 
Showerman, most sympathetically true to life, and Gar- 
land, most realistic. 

John ^luir, a great geologist, in The Story of My Boy- 
hood and Youth, describes the hardships and joys of 
pioneer life in central AMsconsin. 

General Charles King. General Charles King has 
produced the greatest number of stories yet writtten by 
any Wisconsin author. He was born in Xew York in 
1844 and was graduated from West Point in 1866. \Miile 
engaged in the Indian wars in the A\>st he was seriously 
wounded. He has served in the Philippines and has 
been active in building up the Wisconsin National Guard. 
He came to Wisconsin in 1882 and has resided here since 
that time. His novels, which number more than fifty. 



188 OUR WISCONSIN 

are mostly stories of exciting adventure. The Colonel's 
Daughter is probably the best known. He, too, has written 
a life of General Grant, using as its title The Real Ulysses 
S. Grant. 

Women Authors. Three Wisconsin women. Zona 
Gale, Honore Willsie and Edna Ferber, have made their 
mark in current fiction. Each has produced one or 
more novels of great popularity as well as many short 
stories of distinction. Miss Gale's Friendship Village 
does for Wisconsin village life what A Country Chronicle 
does for rural life. Miss Lulu Bctt has been recognized as 
one of the leading American novels. It has been made 
into a most successful drama and moving- picture. Her 
short stories have been published in many of the best 
magazines and have been uniformly successful. Mrs. 
Willsie, like Zona Gale, is a graduate of the University 
of Wisconsin. She is the editor of a leading women's 
magazine. Her novels Still Jim and Lydia of the Pines 
are stories well worth reading. Edna Eerber is one of 
the most popular of present day writers. She was born 
in Michigan, but her education was received In the public 
schools of Appleton, Wisconsin. Aliss Eerber has won- 
derfully acute powers of observation and she has made 
good use of the people found in her home town. In Dawn 
O'Hara she has given an unusually interesting account of 
the German element of Milwaukee. 

James G. Percival. One private collection of books 
In Wisconsin contains more than two hundred volumes 
of poetry produced by Wisconsin writers. It could 
hardly be said that all of them are of any considerable 
merit although many deserve more than passing atten- 
tion. We shall discuss a few of these poets. Nearly 



WISCONSIN IN LITERATURE 189 

every early collection of American poetry contains The 
Coral Grove by James Gates Percival. He was born in 
Connecticut in 1795, a year after the birth of William 
Cullen Bryant. He was graduated from Yale and be- 
came a practicing physician and an eminent geologist. 
He could read thirteen languages. Xoah Webster had 
his assistance in the production of the first great Ameri- 
can dictionary. His poems appeared first in 1821. 
The leading literary magazines of that period rnaked him 
as one of the nine chief American poets, of whom Bryant 
was placed first. Lowell gives him extended mention in 
My Study Window. He came to Wisconsin in 1856 when 
Governor Barstow appointed him to the position of state 
geologist. In the village of Hazel Green he lived alone 
and in poverty. His house was built without a window or 
door at the front, and he made it difficult for any one to 
see him. He had a library of about ten thousand volumes 
upon which he spent most of his scanty income. It is 
known that one year his entire income from literature 
was but sixty-five dollars. This seems like a very small 
amount but Henry Thoreau lived on about the same in- 
come at Walden. Percival's complete works were pub- 
lished in 1866. His best known poem is The Graves of 
the Patriots. His work is too morbid and imitative to 
give him very high rank among our American writers. 
A few years ago a subscription was taken up by Yale 
graduates and at his grave was placed a monument bear- 
ing the following inscription : 

Eminent as a Poet, 

Rarely Accomplished as a Linguist, 

Learned and Acute in Science 

A Man without Guile. 



190 OUR WISCONSIN 

Music. Everybody has heard Silver Threads Among 
the Gold, The Sweet Bye and Bye and The Little Brown 
Church in the Vale, but not every one knows that they 
were written in Wisconsin, the first by Eben E. Rexford, 
the second, in 1868, by Joseph Philbrick Webster and the 
third by Dr. William S. Pitts . Mr. Rexford has written 
many other poems as well as many articles about plants 
but this one song will probably be his principal claim to 
fame. Another poem which has been recited and, un- 
fortunately, parodied everywhere is Ella Wheeler Wil- 
cox's uplifting lyric beginning. 

"Laugh and the world laughs with you; 
Weep and you weep alone." 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox has written a great many poems 
and is perhaps as widely known as any Wisconsin poet. 
Nearly every magazine has published her work, most of 
which is characterized by a helpful optimism but weak- 
ened by too much sentimentality. 

History. In the writing of history, Wisconsin has 
attained a high rank. Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, who 
served for many years as secretary and superintendent of 
the Wisconsin Historical Society, was one of the great 
authorities on early American History of the French 
domain. His works about Wisconsin have done much to 
enlighten us concerning our own state. Every book 
about the Badger State must acknowledge its indebted- 
ness to him. Professor Frederick J. Turner has done 
much to show the importance of the frontier in the 
development of our country. His thinking and writing 
are characterized by clearness and accuracy. Paul S. 
Reinsch, former ambassador to China, has written much 
about the Far East. He is an authority on world politics. 



IV ISC ON SIN IN LITERATURE 191 

Professor x\lbert H. Sanford of the La Crosse State Xor- 
mal School is well known for his text books on American 
history and government. Recently he has told in an 
interesting manner the story of our agricultural develop- 
ment in The Story of Agriculture in the United States. 
Professor Edward A. Ross has become a leading author- 
ity in studies of the world's community life. He is per- 
haps the most readable of all of our contemporary writers 
of history and sociology. These, of course, do not ex- 
haust the list of historical writers. 

Humor. Life is not always serious. We have had 
several authors who have made men see its humorous 
side. We twice chose the author of Peck's Bad Boy to be 
governor of Wisconsin. Mr. Peck was one of a large 
group of newspaper men who helped make Wisconsin 
history. The mirth-provoking antics of Peck's Bad Boy 
were very popular and made the author's newspaper, 
Peck's Sun, known all over the 'United States. Edgar 
\Mlson Xye was a Wisconsin humorist who succeeded 
by the same methods as did Mark Twain. He described 
common occurrences with seriousness and with a skillful 
mixing of sense and nonsense. Bill Xye's Comic History 
of the United States is as good as any of his work. 

One could name a great many more authors who 
have lived at some time or other in Wisconsin. In 1893 
the State Historical Society listed more than eight 
thousand titles of books and pamphlets that have been 
written by Wisconsin men and women. Since that time 
the number must have doubled. 



192 OUR WISCONSIN 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. In Rounds' Wisconsin Authors and Their Works may be 

found selections from many of the books and writers men- 
tioned in this chapter. Read several of them. 

2. Name the principal Wisconsin novelists, poets, historians 

and humorists. 

3. Find out what you can about Thoreau and compare him with 

Percival. 

4. What book mentioned would you care to read? 

Township Library List? 

5. What books by Wisconsin authors are on the Wisconsin 



CHAPTER XXX 



THE GROWTH OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 

The first schools in Wisconsin were established by 
the Jesuits for the purpose of converting and civilizing 
the Indians. The first teacher on Wisconsin soil was 
James Porlier, who came to Green Bay in 1791 as an in- 
structor for the grand-children of Charles Langlade. The 
fijst schoolmaster employed by the public was Thomas 
S. Johnson who began a school in Green Bay in 1817. 
This_was^^jvery primitive institution and gave only the 
most elementary instruction. It was supported by the 
parents of the pupils. 

School systems were organized soon after the settle- 
ment of the lead regions following the Black Hawk War. 
The first one to be established and maintained by a gen- 
eral tax was at Kenosha. There, Colonel Michael Frank 
and a group of progressive men began a system of schools 
which became an example for other cities and towns of 
the state and attracted attention in other parts of the 
country where state systems of education were being 
planned. Colonel Frank was chairman of a convention 
held in Madison in 1845 to suggest a scheme for a state 
public school system. When the state constitution was 
adopted, it included many of the ideas of this convention. 
Our general scheme of education, however, was borrowed 
largely from the Michigan plan of organization which, in 
turn, had been borrowed from New York. 



194 OUR WISCONSIN 

The first state superintendent of public instruction 
was Eleazer Root. His first report showed 80,445 chil- 
dren between the ages of four and twenty, about half of 
whom were attending school. The average wages for 
teachers was then $15.22 a month for men and $6.92 for 
women. There were seven hundred and four school 
houses, three hundred fifty-nine of which were built of 
logs. 

Until 1861 there were no county superintendents. In 
that year the old town system of school government 
passed out of existence. The first course of study for 
use in the schools of the state was issued in 1878. The 
present state manual outlining the work of the schools 
is now in its sixteenth edition. It prescribes the work 
to be covered and suggests methods of teaching. It is 
generally considered one of the best of its kind in the 
country. 

The first kindergarten in the United States was 
opened in 1855 at Watertown, Wisconsin, by Mrs. Carl 
Schurz. Mrs. Schurz had been a pupil of Froebel, the 
founder of the kindergarten system of instruction. The 
first kindergarten in a public school system in this state 
was established at Manitowoc under the superintendency 
of C. F. Viebahn. The Oshkosh Normal in 1880 became 
the first state normal school to establish a kindergarten. 
There are now about four hundred kindergartens in the 
state with an attendance of more than twenty thousand. 

Our high schools are an outgrowth of the old aca- 
demies. One of the earliest of these academies was estab- 
lished at Platteville in 1839. It finally developed into 
the State Normal at that place. Others were established 
upon the New England model. The courses of study 



THE GROWTH OF TJJIi J'CHLIC SCHOOL 195 

were very liberal, embracing everything from the three 
R's to the classics. They did a good work out, because 
they were privately controlled and were dependent upon 
tuition fees for their support, they gradually gave away 
to the free high school. Here again, Kenosha was a 
pioneer. This city established the first free high school 
in A\'isconsin, which opened its doors on July 31, 1849. 
Its founder. Colonel Frank, has often been called the 
Father of the Free School System of Wisconsin. By 1875 
the state had eighteen such schools in operation. There 
are now^ nearly four hundred. The high school has be- 
come one of the most important parts of our public school 
system. It is often called the People's College. 

The State University was organized in the year in 
which the state w^as admitted into the Union. It was the 
sixteenth state university to be organized. Pennsylvania 
has the honor of having organized a state university in 
1/00. The first state normal school Avas opened at 
Platteville on October 9, 1866. There are nine such 
schools in the state. The first county training school 
was opened at Wausau in 1899. About thirty of the^e 
schools are now in operation. 

The national government in 1787 gave each state in 
the Xorthwest Territory section sixteen of each town- 
ship as a basis for a permanent school fund. Since 1848, 
section thirty-six has also been given. When Wisconsin 
was admitted to the Union, the state w^as given as addi- 
tional five hundred thousand acres of land. In addition, 
five per cent of the proceeds of all the public land sold in 
the state w^as to become a part of the school fund. Of all 
the states having such funds Wisconsin has been most 
unfortunate. Although .Alinnesota has an annual income 



196 OUR WISCOXSIN 

of almost two millions from this source, Wisconsin has 
but a little more than two hundred thousand or about 
ten per cent of her neighbor's receipts. 

This chapter closes this brief history of Wisconsin. 
The Badger State has grown, as have other states, but 
she has been particularly enterprising in matters of 
popular education and in the science and art of good 
government. These facts have given our state a promi- 
nent place in the nation. Xo oracle is needed to prophecy 
her future, if we may judge her future by her past. The 
story of her development from the days of the explorer 
and the forest ranger to the modern era of progressive 
American statehood is as interesting in character if not 
as important as the stories told of the Cavaliers of Vir- 
ginia, the Pilgrims of jMassachusetts and the fortune 
hunters of California. The Badger State has always 
been true to her motto of Forivard, and her citizens will 
continue to sing ON WISCONSIN. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What contributions has Wisconsin made to education? to 

good government? 

2. What is meant by the district school system? 

3. How are our schools supported? 

4. Why should people be taxed to support schools? 

5. Why are we justified in believing in the future of Wisconsin? 



